


Close Your Eyes for Good

by Loudest_Voice



Series: The Legend of God's Eyes [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Chuunin Exams, Erratic Updates, Gen, Magic Ninja Medicine, Non-Massacre AU, Tags to be added, UST, alternating povs, longfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7133846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few tweaks in the way things turned out, and next thing you know there are men in strange cloaks with red clouds involved with the chuunin exams. Also, the Uchiha and the Hyuuga are probably more trouble than they're worth, but that's hardly news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. . . I'm going back to work soon. This will not update quickly, especially in the following months. At least I've made significant progress answering comments. 
> 
> To anyone who just clicked this story without reading the prequels, I'm afraid you might be a little lost. Hopefully, you give it a shot regardless. 
> 
> As usual, thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading!

D-rank missions dry up around the time the last summer heat wave hits Konoha. Itachi-sensei, who’d started coming to training on a daily basis after the “accident” with his Shadow Clone and Neji, showed up one morning and declared that none had been posted that day.

“Most genin squads have been broken in by this point,” he’d said to them, sighing. “I suppose I’ll start taking C-rank missions too.”

Naruto would have yelled something about how they’d also been “broken in” months ago, but he has sort of accepted Itachi for what he is already, and thus saves his half-perfunctory outbursts for days when Itachi’s teaching methods are particularly obtuse. Besides, there's no point in blowing up when the guy has already decided to start taking real missions. 

“It really felt like we were the only ones doing chores for a while there,” he tells Sasuke that evening, as they rest atop one of the tallest hickory trees at the edge of the village. 

It’s one of Naruto’s favorite spots. Large swaths of forest are visible on one side, most of the village is visible from the other, and an ever-present cool wind streams through the branches even during the hottest days of the summer. He’d visit more often, but Sasuke is paranoid and refuses to pick a single spot that potential enemies might expect him to visit on a regular basis.

“Civilians must have stopped posting D-ranks because most of them go unanswered now,” says Sasuke. “Everyone hates them.”

“Whatever,” says Naruto. “As long as we don’t have to do them anymore, I don’t care why. Let’s go grab dinner.”

It’s Friday, so the entire village is alight with people who don’t have to show up at work the next day. A line as long as the block waits in front of Ichiraku’s, and Sasuke complains that he’s too hungry to wait for crappy soup. Naruto’s in too good a mood to do more than bristle at the insult to his favorite food place in the whole world. He mock-punches Sasuke’s shoulder and tells him to pick a spot, beaming at no one in particular.

It’s too bad that Sakura is doing another night shift at the ER because the weather hasn’t been so nice in weeks. Naruto can’t help but laugh as he runs around Sasuke, commenting on all the restaurants that they consider and immediately discard because they can’t afford them without Itachi around. In a couple of blocks, they’ll be a few shuriken throws away from the Red Lights District, and prices will drop more to their range. 

“You think we’ll get a new mission tomorrow?” asks Naruto, turning around to walk backwards as he talks to Sasuke. “Besides escort missions, what else is—”

He bumps into someone stumbling out of a bar, and would probably have fallen right on his face if not for all the practice he’s had at not tripping while sparring with Sasuke. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, laughing as he turns around.

His smile melts when he recognizes his neighbor’s craggy face. It’s one of the men who lives in his apartment and treats him worse than most villagers. Knowing that the Fox probably murdered his parents, or family, or wife, or whatever doesn’t make Naruto stand him any better.

“ _You_ ,” the guy spits, rising to his feet. “Walking around, getting our money, and our ranks.”

“Come on,” Naruto tells Sasuke, gesturing at him to walk around the drunken fool.

“And following a traitor around like a puppy!”

Naruto grinds to a halt. “Don’t talk about him like that.” Sasuke’s not like his family, even if the way he talks about Konoha gets a little too resentful sometimes.

“Let’s not get into this now,” says Sasuke, grabbing Naruto’s arm. 

Naruto’s neighbor lets out a bitter laugh. People are coming out of the bar he just left, a few wearing headbands, but Naruto doesn’t care about that. 

“Come on,” says Sasuke.

“Why don’t you use that Sharingan of yours to make him your bitch—”

Naruto doesn’t get a chance to plant his fist in the bastard’s face because Sasuke’s moving as fast as he did back when Lee was on their team. He kicks under the drunk’s chin, and the guy flies up and lands several feet away. It’s a little overkill, in Naruto’s opinion, and Sasuke barely looks mad. 

One of the ninja walking out of the bar notices the commotion. He catches sight of the Uchiha fan on the back of Sasuke’s shirt, and that’s it. Naruto knows it’s gonna blow up before the ninja’s knees bend, and he’s running forward to defend Sasuke before he works out what the ninja is about to do.

Naruto tries really hard not to get too violent, but Itachi hasn’t gotten around to teaching them fighting techniques that don’t leave the opponent severely injured. Or dead. He grabs the ninja’s wrist, twists the way Itachi showed him with (non-exploding) clones a couple of times, and the ninja’s on the ground. A sharp cry escapes his lips, so he’s either a really bad ninja, or more shit-faced than is obvious. 

“Run!” Naruto yells at Sasuke. Considering who they are, the situation has nowhere to go but south.

Sasuke’s beside him in an instant, so Naruto creates a few dozen clones. Several transform into Sasuke and they spread out, hopefully luring anyone following them around in circles. 

They lose the original crowd of angry drunks, but before Naruto can stop to celebrate, he notices a squad of ANBU following them. He’s sure he can outrun them, or flood them with a multitude of Shadow Clones, but Sasuke doesn’t have the stamina he does. 

“Just stop,” says Sasuke, pausing on a rooftop in the center of the village. “It was self-defense.”

Naruto doubts they can sell that, but he can’t leave Sasuke behind, and he sure as hell can’t start a fight with ANBU. Even if he wins, there would be nowhere to go afterwards. So he mirrors Sasuke and drops to his knees, placing his hands behind his head to indicate that he doesn’t plan to make hand seals. Six ANBU surround them in an instant, and fuck, they’re just genin. This has to be overkill.

The broadest of the ANBU walks forward. Naruto can’t begin to guess what might be going through his mind with that stupid, beaked mask hiding his facial expressions. He glances at Sasuke, then wills himself to hold his tongue. The cool breeze that had made him so happy earlier in the night just makes a chill run down his spine now.

It hits him that the ANBU don’t plan to say anything when one of them grabs Sasuke’s arm. Naruto’s muscles tense, and his fingers twitch at the back of his head. For Sasuke, he’ll take on Konoha’s entire shinobi army, consequences be damned. He’ll explain everything later.

 _Caw_.

Naruto’s eyes flick towards the sound, and the flapping of dark wings, way more than he’d anticipated, captures his attention. ANBU, and even Sasuke, fade to the back of his mind as a crowd of crows coalesces into a murky cloud that takes the form of a human silhouette. Naruto recognizes Itachi’s slight form before he catches his sensei’s gaze. He seems frailer than usual, framed by a fat moon that hangs low in the sky, but Naruto’s breath still quickens. 

“What’s going on?” asks Itachi.

“There’s no need for your dramatics,” says the ninja with the beaked mask. “I’m arresting your genin for assaulting a civilian, and a fellow shinobi.”

“Is that what happened?” Itachi tilts his head. “I spoke to several witnesses who reported something entirely different.”

Naruto looks around, his mind starting to clear. Since he’s shit at genjutsu, then Itachi must have concluded his badass entrance. He searches Sasuke’s gaze, but Sasuke’s staring down at the roof tiles, hands still folded at the back of his head, face blank as rice paper.

“Will they still say that once the Yamanaka have done their mind-walk?” asks the masked ninja.

“Perhaps not,” says Itachi. “Do you think it’ll matter either way? Over a drunk and some no-name career chuunin?”

Naruto’s not sure if it’s more genjutsu, or just Itachi’s words, but the ANBU captain gestures at his squad. A moment later, they’re gone, or at least hidden so well that Naruto can’t guess where they are. He jumps to his feet, beaming despite the tension still tainting the air.

“Sensei, sometimes you’re the _coolest!_ ” he says, as Sasuke rises from his knees, much more subdued.

“I didn’t wake up this morning expecting to clean up such an idiotic mess,” says Itachi.

“And he’s back,” says Naruto, looking at Sasuke as he shakes his head. 

“We didn’t ask you to step in,” says Sasuke.

“But we’re totally happy you did,” Naruto adds quickly, unwilling to let Sasuke’s thing for Itachi get in the way of them getting out of such a mess unscathed. Whatever it is that makes Sasuke’s good sense fly out the window when it comes to Itachi, he’ll have to get over it for at least one evening.

“Don’t try and pretend you’re too good for my help after creating a situation where you needed it,” says Itachi, looking straight at Sasuke. 

Sasuke stares right back.

“Uh,” says Naruto. They don’t even glance his way. It’s like he’s melted into the roof tiles.

“Kicking that drunken fool was unnecessary,” Itachi tells Sasuke. “It’s stupid to be so determined to hide something that even Naruto will work it out for himself soon enough.” 

Even who? “What?”

“Don’t do something like this again,” says Itachi. “I won’t cover for you a second time.”

Before Naruto can interject, Itachi vanishes. A cool breeze passes over the roof as Naruto snarls, remembering why he can’t stand Itachi half the time. The bastard doesn’t even pretend not to ignore Naruto when it suits him. 

“What did he mean?” he asks Sasuke.

Instead of answering, Sasuke whirls away and jumps off to another roof. As if he can get away from Naruto that easily anymore. He knows he doesn’t have to outrun Sasuke now, just outlast him. And they’ve been spending enough time together that Naruto knows which areas of the village Sasuke avoids at all costs (the jail, the area where the Uchiha police force used to be, and the Uchiha compound when he’s mad).

“Stop following me!” yells Sasuke the moment they reach the outskirts of the village. Once they reach a mile or so ahead, the Hyuuga sentries will see them, if they haven’t already.

“No way, this has to do with me,” Naruto yells back. “Whatever it is, I’m probably not gonna get mad. Come on, just tell me.”

Sasuke snarls, and for a second, Naruto braces himself to counter some kind of attack. But it’s not one of Sasuke’s worst moods, so he just kicks the next tree trunk where he lands, breathing hard. 

“What exactly do you know about Itachi?” he asks, the instant Naruto lands next to him.

“I know he’s way stronger than he looks, and that’s why ANBU and Hokage-sama knows who else lets him get away with not teaching whenever he feels like it,” says Naruto, shrugging. “And that you got some personal shit going on with him. I’m not stupid, y’know.”

“You never read his public profile?” Sasuke still doesn’t look up.

“Nah,” says Naruto, with a little sigh. “At first because I don’t read shit that doesn’t have porn in it, and then because I realized you didn’t want me to. Well, Sakura kinda hinted you wouldn’t want me to, and I figure she’s smarter than me and probably knows better.”

Sasuke looks his way, eyebrows furrowed. “Dead last, I’d have investigated immediately. The first fucking day, no matter what you might want.”

“You’re an asshole.” Naruto shrugs. 

Sasuke chuckles. “His full name is Uchiha Itachi. And he’s my brother.”

. . . No way.

“Like. . . clan brother, or _brother_ brother?” For reasons Naruto doesn’t care to examine, it bothers him to imagine the latter. Maybe it’s because he knows how it all ends. 

“Same parents,” says Sasuke. “Once, he told me if I could sneak into his room while he was there, he’d help me train every day, rain or shine, for a month. I never managed it.”

Naruto could see it a little too easily: baby Sasuke running around, trying to impress a brother whose head was up in the clouds more often than not. “Well.” He sighs. “This explains a lot of things. You guys looking so much alike, for starters.”

“Yes, that’s the greatest mystery this solves,” says Sasuke. “Why two dark-haired guys look alike.”

The hair isn’t what makes them near-identical, but Naruto lets that slide for more important matters. “He was the one who. . .” Naruto makes slashing motions at his limbs, because he doesn’t really know what else to say. 

Sasuke’s used to it, apparently. Or just used to Naruto. Either way, he doesn’t react. 

“But,” continues Naruto, “he would’ve been like. . . our age when it happened.”

“He was thirteen when he walked into a neighborhood of trained police officers and shinobi, used genjutsu even though almost everyone was resistant to them, then maimed every adult he didn’t kill.”

Passive-aggressive, skinny, and soft-spoken Itachi. It’s like trying to imagine a kitten swallowing a flaming sword. 

“With help from ANBU?”

“I wasn’t there,” says Sasuke. “But all the survivors say he acted alone.”

“Sorry?” says Naruto. 

It’s obvious that the entire thing eats at Sasuke, but his creepy family had been trying to usurp the old-man-Hokage. Terrible or not, Itachi had done the right thing. Or so people have told Naruto for five years straight. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because. . .” Sasuke sighs and leans on the tree trunk. “Because no one sees me. They just see that I’m not as strong as him. It was nice not to be compared to him, I guess.”

“Sasuke, it. . .” This is the point where Naruto’s supposed to say that Itachi’s just older, that if he trains hard enough, Sasuke can catch up. But Itachi’s only like _seventeen_. He’s not even at his prime yet. “I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care if Itachi’s stronger, or smarter, or cooler, or nicer, or whatever.” Naruto smiles, more to himself than anything. “I still like you better.”

Sasuke is quiet for a long moment. He doesn’t meet Naruto’s eyes. Then he snorts, loud and obnoxious. “Like I care. What does it matter if you ‘like me better’, dead last? This is why I don’t tell you things. You’re embarrassing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Naruto, yawning. He’ll be used to the unexpected intra-team brotherhood by sunrise, probably. “You know we never got dinner?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my last week on "vacation", though I've been doing a lot of work stuff already. I'm gonna miss having almost unlimited time for writing.
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always!

Instead of bringing a C-rank mission, Itachi brings them a payment slip for an S-rank mission from “a while ago” that he “forgot to cash”. Sakura decides then and there that she needs to become a jounin, if only for the apparently insane salary. 

“Split this reward among yourselves, and you shouldn’t be hurting for money for a while,” he says, as he gathers his hair into a bun, visibly annoyed at the wind that’s been blowing his bangs into his eyes all morning. 

“So, we’re just not doing anything?” asks Naruto.

“I’ll spar with you in the mornings,” says Itachi. “And then you can do what you like in the afternoons.”

“Sensei, why don’t you come and train with us in the afternoons too?” asks Sakura.

Itachi tilts his head at her. Sakura refuses to back down. If he’s going to be lazy, then she’s going to call him on it.

“I’m busy,” he says. 

“Doing what?” demands Naruto. 

“That’s none of your business,” says Itachi. 

“I swear, if you just take off again, I’m gonna go straight to the old man-Hokage,” says Naruto. “It’s not fair when you ignore us.”

“I said I would come every morning.” Itachi closes his eyes briefly, then glares at Naruto. “I don’t understand any of you. When I was a genin, I would’ve killed for my sensei to disappear for a couple of days.”

“I would kill for you to disappear,” says Sasuke. 

Itachi gives him a look. “I concede I walked right into that one.”

“Hah, hah,” Naruto says flatly. “You guys are a fucking riot. But seriously, what are you gonna be doing?”

Itachi refuses to answer them, which doesn’t surprise Sakura in the slightest. It’s her turn to “spar” with him, and though she dreads it, she forces herself to fight like she has any hope of beating him. Actually beating him isn’t the point, and she already wasted too much time angsting that she never would during her first few months as a genin. He can be bored all he wants now. Sakura has to work on her breathing.

She’s not a very physical person, so she hasn’t mastered the basics of timing her breaths with her strikes, never mind that she’s read the theory behind proper breathing habits during taijutsu a million times. About an hour before lunch, she’s exhausted and wiping sweat off her brow while Itachi tilts his head at her. But she tells herself that it took longer than usual for her lungs to ache as though they are on fire. 

“You know,” she says, forcing herself to stretch even though all she wants to do is drop onto the grass and curl into a ball, “you could just tell me what you’d do if you were me.”

“I would be faster,” says Itachi.

The spirits of the forest give her the strength and serenity necessary to deal with this douche. “Yes, that’s why I said _if_ you were me.”

“I. . . would become faster,” says Itachi. 

Sakura stares at him.

“You do resistance and endurance training first to increase your muscle strength and stamina, then do sprinting exercises to increase your speed,” says Itachi.

“Thank you, sensei, for the advice,” says Sakura, making sure to smile. He’s said nothing groundbreaking, but Sakura figures he needs all the positive reinforcement in the world when it comes to teaching.

About a week later, Sakura grudgingly admits that Itachi’s latest work-shirking scheme works out in her favor. With her afternoons free, she gets through about twice the didactic material she would have otherwise. She worries a little about her general shinobi skills, then decides that something has to give. 

That weekend, in the middle of an afternoon that had been pretty uneventful, a woman collapses onto the floor of the trauma bay after she deposits her screaming teammate on a stretcher. Sakura doesn’t know who needs more immediate attention, and before she can decide, Eiji’s throwing commands at the room. 

“Kaisha, see to the one on the floor. Kabuto, lay out a surgical kit for me. Hey,” he says, searching the screaming ninja’s face, “where’s the problem?”

Kaisha and two other med-chuunin check the collapsed kunoichi’s vitals, then begin moving her to a gurney. The ninja on the stretcher writhes, then gestures at his legs with a raw scream. 

“Right,” says Eiji, as his hands flare blueish-green with chakra. “Kimiko, partial trauma survey, then emergency anesthesia, and watch his breathing. Hyuuga? Where is she?”

“I can get her,” says Sakura.

“Never mind,” says Eiji, closing in on the supine chuunin. He reaches for the guy’s left foot, but the guy screams the moment Eiji tries to bend his ankle. “Pink, get the monitors on. Kabuto, two peripheral lines.”

Using chakra scalpels, Eiji cuts off the guy’s left pant leg before Kaisha has moved his unconscious teammate to another aisle in the trauma bay. Sakura can’t watch what he does once the patient’s leg is exposed because she has to help Kabuto with the surgical kit, taking way less time than she would like washing and gloving with a portable hand-washing kit that’s only supposed to be for emergency field procedures. But they need to be ready in case Eiji gets too tired for chakra scalpels, or just needs to do something too complex for his skills with a chakra blade. 

“He’s got blood in his left ear canal,” says Kimiko. 

“Can you scan him for skull fractures?” asks Eiji. 

“With chakra?”

“No, with prayer,” snaps Eiji, without looking up from the leg. Blood blooms around the cut he’s made. A bit tries to gush, but his hand glow brighter for an instant, and then the bleeding is under control. “Of course with chakra.”

Sakura steals a look at the monitor, and notes normal-ish vitals while Kimiko grunts. “I don’t wanna make it worse.”

“Kaisha, what the hell’s happening over there?” yells Eiji.

“Poison!” Kaisha yells back. “She’s about to crash!”

“Just drop it if it’s a lost cause.” Eiji opens the leg wound further, eyes fixed on his work, then reaches for two of the smallest soft-tissue retractors. “Hold,” he tells Kabuto, then raises his voice again. “Kaisha, I’m probably gonna need you here.”

“ _I’m_ probably gonna need _you_ here!”

Sakura expects Eiji to pull rank, as he usually does in these types of situations, but instead he grunts. “Anyone here good with Water Release?”

“Me,” Sakura says, before she quite registers the question and its relation to the situation.

Eiji glances at her. “Oh, alright, I believe in you and stuff.” But his voice is just shy of trembling, and even Sakura can hear it. “Gimme your hand.”

His hand is so big that Sakura wants to shrink away, especially when his chakra envelops her. “You don’t have to do much,” he says, as a stream of blood hits the center of Sakura’s palm. “Just keep the pressure here with your chakra. The blood will flow to the path of least resistance on its own. I’ll be right back. Don’t worry; worst comes to worst, I’ll just amputate.”

He makes it sound so easy, but Sakura’s afraid to breathe. One wrong move and the guy will lose his leg, and it’ll be her fault.

“He’s funny,” says Kabuto.

Sakura would disagree, vehemently, but she’s trying to keep the required amount of chakra without burning herself. Or the patient’s muscles. When she does Water Release at the pond, she uses the minimal amount of chakra and always, _always_ takes the water along the arches it would have gone all on its own. It’d never occurred to her to do it any other way. 

“I’m back, I’m back.”

Sakura almost loses control of the leak before his giant paw of a hand covers hers and his chakra takes over.

“No skull fracture; we’re clear. Nice going, Flower Petal. Now go get me Hyuuga.”

The surgery is done by the time Sakura gets back with Hinata in tow. Hinata sags in relief beside her, and Sakura gestures her forward so she can listen while Eiji talks to Kabuto. He’s smiling, and he tends to drop hints about which subjects would be best to study when he’s in a good mood.

“Compartment syndrome,” Eiji’s saying when they approach the counter in the trauma bay. “Usually not a big deal, but that guy just had to have snowflake vasculature. My fault, though. I should’ve checked before cutting.”

Eiji had made a mistake? The thought hadn’t crossed Sakura’s mind. He always seems so in control of things, even when they go wrong.

“Let that be a lesson to you, old man,” continues Eiji. “Always check before cutting.” 

Sakura doesn’t get to ask more questions because the entire ER gets crowded after that, as if every sick person in the village decided to get help at the same time. She files the incident away, barely remembering to be proud of herself for not making the guy’s leg explode, and makes plans to visit Hinata that weekend.

The Hyuuga main house is like something out of a daytime drama. It’s the place where the daimyo’s daughter would live, complete with expansive gardens for her to sneak into in the middle of the night to meet her dangerous ninja paramour. 

Sakura had first visited during one of Konoha’s nastiest heat waves and had been amazed at how cool the rooms were. Her father would credit the architecture that allowed for so much room and so many windows, a luxury that only the richest families could afford. Sakura never tells her mother that her new Hyuuga friend is _the_ Hyuuga heir, because she’d never be allowed out the door without donning her most expensive kimono, and her mother would brag to the entire village until it somehow got back to Ino, who would of course make fun of her.

The branch family member who greets her on Sunday afternoon regrets to inform her that Hinata-sama is training with Hiashi-sama and Hanabi-sama, but she’s happy enough to take Sakura to Neji-niisan, who’s merely meditating in the gardens.

Sakura almost begs off, then she tells herself that Neji can always tell her to go away. She’s convinced that deep down, Neji’s fascinated by anatomy, and would probably have volunteered to be a medic if most boys didn’t have their hang-ups about the med corp being for girls. When she shows him the scrolls she brought along about compartment syndrome, he’ll forget any annoyance at being interrupted during meditation.

It turns out he’s not meditating at all, but playing with a tiny bird that landed on his wrist at some point. As Sakura gazes at him, trying to decide how long she can stare before it can be called staring, he approaches the tiny creature with his left hand and lets it peck the pads of his fingers. Then he runs those same fingers over the bird’s brown plumage.

The bird flies off the instant it hears Sakura. She cringes inwardly and offers Neji an apologetic smile for not being more stealthy. 

“Sorry.”

He shrugs. “Birds like to fly.”

She sits next to him on the bench, smiling as the bird perches on a pink chrysanthemum stalk a few feet away from them. “Something cool happened at the hospital yesterday. Well, not cool for the patient, but. . . You’ll see.”

Most times, watching Neji study makes her jealous. He pretends to be above it all at first, but he always ends up engrossed with the textbooks and scrolls, and then he activates his Byakugan and examines his own body. Sometimes, he traces invisible lines on his own skin, the pads of his fingers glowing with chakra. 

He does so then, tracing the outer side of his shin in a pattern that reminds Sakura of Eiji’s incision along the screaming ninja’s leg. Sakura would reach over and follow his fingers’ paths, but it would be weird.

“Ow!” says Neji, ripping his hand off his shin as though he’s burned himself. “I mean,” he adds, swallowing, “that stung a little.”

“Can I?” asks Sakura.

“Can you what?”

Sakura gestures at his leg vaguely, the one with the pants bunched up above his knee. “Feel what you were feeling.”

“Do it with your own leg,” says Neji, straightening the dark cloth. “Blood flows with chakra. Everything flows with chakra. I didn’t really realize what it meant before, though it’s obvious. Medical ninjutsu uses chakra to force the body to do what it would regardless, but faster.”

That’s what they’d been reading for weeks now. “Like the books say?”

“No, they don’t get it.” Neji shakes his head. “You could rip someone apart with this, explode them as easily as Itachi does with that clone.”

Sakura stops breathing, then sighs. Maybe she’s the weird one for not jumping to that conclusion. They are shinobi, after all.

The Branch member who’d led her to the garden spares her from having to continue the conversation. She seems stricken, even to Sakura and her mundane eyes. She recognizes family drama, which looks the same no matter how rich the family, and excuses herself so the Hyuuga can handle their business.

She’s uneasy on the way home, and she’s not quite sure why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this one done and edited, but it features and OC heavily so my bad?
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always!

Itachi doesn’t remember ever having so much free time before. If he’d known all it’d have taken for the council to get too scared to deploy him for every random assassination was a little training accident, he might have staged one sooner.

Not that he staged the accident with Neji, and he still feels a little bad about it. He likes Neji. The kid is smart, and the Hyuuga elders hate him. If Neji had died, it’d have stung. Plus, Eiji had overreacted about a mere injury. Who knows how he might’ve handled an actual death.

Anyway. He’s getting paid as much as a chuunin, and he thought he’d go mad with boredom the first week, but then he started doing the things he’d never had time for. Reading Jiraiya-sama’s books, for instance. There has to be something to them.

There’s fifty-two of the damned things, and he’s up to installment twenty. Jiraiya-sama, for all his perversions, can’t seem to blemish a paper with graphic descriptions of genitals, but he has a gift for melodrama. Itachi admits that he’s amused. He intends to spend another evening with a book and a serving of dark chocolate and raspberries when someone knocks on his door.

No one knocks on his door. Kakashi breaks into his apartment, and so does Anko occasionally, now that Ibiki has her spying on him. He visits Eiji, not the other way around, and sometimes they come to his apartment. It can only be his landlord, though Itachi can’t begin to guess why. He considers that he’s well-slept and relaxed, and almost feels bad for any attacker that might be at his door. 

But it’s just Eiji, wearing bloodstained green scrubs. Fresh bloodstains. 

Itachi is shocked, but too much of a professional to let it show on his face. “I thought we were broken up,” he says.

Eiji is far from a professional, despite his rank and his years of service, so his big grey eyes get wider. “Yeah, I s-should go.”

“Come in,” says Itachi, resisting an impulse to roll his eyes. That’s just what they say to each other now, but clearly they’re not _really_ broken up because Eiji never makes him leave when he visits. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry,” breathes Eiji, heading straight for Itachi’s candy. “You’re reading Jiraiya’s shit books, now?”

“I’ve been unofficially demoted, thanks to you,” says Itachi.

“Yeah, thanks to me, not you blowing up one of your students.”

Itachi is not in the mood for this fight, again, and he doubts Eiji is either. “Why did you come over?”

“Something happened at the hospital.”

Lots of things happen at the hospital. Itachi figures that if he stays quiet, Eiji might get to the point faster than usual.

“Jian’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” says Itachi, because that’s the custom. Though he’s not sure why Eiji looks so shaken, since he never did anything but complain about his senior surgeon.

“They’re saying he killed himself,” continues Eiji, falling on Itachi’s chair and laying his head down on the kitchen table.

There’s going to be blood everywhere. Itachi rescues the book, at least.

“He wouldn’t do that,” says Eiji. “I know.”

People commit suicide all the time. Ninja commit suicide even more of the time. He’s sure that once the shock has worn off, Eiji will see that. But in the meantime. . .

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” admits Eiji, “but I know it wasn’t suicide. I don’t care what the autopsy says.”

“Who did the autopsy?”

“I did.”

Oh. Great. “You think you’re wrong?”

“Someone’s staging this,” says Eiji, reaching for Itachi’s arm. “Listen, Jian loved his job, and he had family that cared for him, and he was future-oriented and goal-oriented, and. . . and. . .”

It happens like a trainwreck. Eiji sucks in a short breath that gets trapped somewhere in his throat, and then he’s crying. Ugly, undignified tears that wouldn’t make it into a melodramatic soap opera because they screw up his handsome face. Itachi’s close to paralyzed. It reminds him of Sasuke screaming as a child, refusing to see reason. Back then, he’d just stared until Sasuke got himself under control.

Eiji doesn’t seem to care that Itachi is just staring, and cries harder. He pauses to blow his nose on his bloody scrubs, and that’s more alarming than even the tears. Eiji is usually so finicky about blood. 

“Are you alright?”

“Do I look alright to you, asshole?” Eiji yells. “Shit, I’m breathing blood.”

“Do you want me to use a genjutsu to make you feel better—”

“—Fuck you.” He hiccups. “I should be glad you at least asked first.”

“There’s no need to yell,” says Itachi. “You’ll upset my neighbors.”

“I don’t know why the fuck I came here,” says Eiji, starting to get up.

Itachi grabs his wrist. “You know why.” People usually know why they do the things they do, even if they won’t admit it to themselves. “Sit down. Or go shower or something. You’ll feel better.”

“None of your shit fits me, you midget.”

“Then wash your scrubs and go naked until they dry,” says Itachi. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Eiji mumbles something derogatory that Itachi doesn’t care to decipher, but he gets up and heads to Itachi’s room, pulling the scrub top off over his head. Once he’s disappeared into the bedroom, Itachi quietly panics. _Eiji_ might know why he came, but Itachi sure doesn’t. He seems too distressed for sex, and no one would come to Itachi for emotional support of any kind, so. . . food?

Considering the garbage food he’s seen Eiji inhale, he figures his own bland but healthy food won’t be too offensive. He cleans the blood off his table, puts Jiraiya-sama’s book aside for the moment, and gets up to cook about three times the amount of food he usually would. He adds more starch and protein than usual, then makes a quick run to the nearest grocer for a liter of any of the gross sugary drinks Eiji favors. 

By the time Itachi returns, Eiji’s on his couch, with a couple white bedsheets wrapped around his waist. The food is about to burn. Itachi bites back a complaint and goes to add more water to the potato stew he’s got on the stove. 

“That’s taking too long to cook,” Eiji whines from the couch. 

“Then come and help,” says Itachi.

Eiji comes over, but his version of helping amounts to drinking the soda right out of the bottle. “You know, maybe I’m just sleep deprived, but I’ve been thinking it’s too much of a coincidence that like four surgeons died this year alone.”

Yes, it is unusual, but none of the deaths had been ruled suspicious. Sometimes a string of events, no matter how catastrophic, really is just a bad coincidence.

“And Ibiki might say I’m too emotionally compromised to see things clearly or whatever, but fuck him, I know something isn’t right. I’d say I’d quit, and I even did that, but he laid on the spiel about _how can I abandon the hospital under these circumstances_ , and _you don’t even know how to investigate shit_ , and _blah, blah, blah_. I should just stay home and see what he does.”

Eiji is useful enough that he can’t just leave Konoha’s army, but not strong enough that he can refuse orders. His options are to comply, or go missing. Or suicide. Itachi turns off the stove and focuses on transferring the meal to a serving pot, eager to hide the way his hands almost tremble. 

“You’ll be in jail for insubordination by the end of the week,” says Itachi. If all he can do tonight is talk Eiji down from a precipice he can’t walk back from, then it’ll be enough.

“At least I’d get three meals a day and eight hours of sleep on a regular basis,” says Eiji. 

“You’d get bored,” says Itachi. “A few days and you’d be crying to me to use mass-genjutsu to get you out.”

“Another month of this shit and I’ll probably test that theory,” says Eiji.

Itachi turns around and puts the serving pot in front of him, expecting that Eiji will grab a pair of chopsticks from the nearby drawer and start eating without preamble. He just cradles the soda bottle and stares at the table.

“Eat,” says Itachi. “You’ve been losing weight.” It’s obvious on someone his size.

“Babe, I didn’t think you’d notice my new diet of soda and soldier pills.”

“It’s not an invitation for an argument,” says Itachi, going to the drawer himself. He places a pair of chopsticks on the table. “You came for my help, so take it.”

“I didn’t come for your food,” says Eiji, but he reaches for the chopsticks. “I came so you’ll look into Jian’s death. Someone has to do something. He was an asshole, but he gave this fucking village two decades of service, and now they’re just gonna let him die.”

The village can’t keep people from dying, but Itachi can see that Eiji’s beyond reasoning with. More than usual. “I’ll look into it,” he says. “Not like I’m doing much else lately.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here.
> 
> Seven more days until returning to work. I would go out more, but my funds are running dangerously low. Good for my writing schedule, I guess.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always!

The mission with Guy turns up jack shit besides rumors too fantastical to be anything more than fishwife tales. Kakashi’s trying really hard not to let it get to him. That’s just the way missions go sometimes. Considering how strong that strange Uchiha had been, he should be grateful for the reprieve and get to training.

“You’ve been on time a lot lately,” Asuma says. He’s across from Kakashi, chewing on one of those plastic sticks that’s supposed to help people quit smoking. “Should I be concerned for your mental health?”

“I’m just becoming more mindful of others’ needs, Sarutobi-san.”

“Blow me,” says Asuma, but it lacks heat. He must have gotten over his thing about not being called by his father’s name, mostly. Maybe it has to do with the rookie, Kurenai, the new genjutsu specialist who seems to sit next to him at every opportunity. Rumor has it that she’s making him quit smoking. Why not Asuma’s grudge against his old man, too?

“So,” says Anko, “am I the only one who’s going to mention that Itachi’s reading porn in public?”

“It’s erotica,” corrects Itachi. 

Kakashi chuckles. He doesn’t know what possessed the kid to pick up the Make-Out Paradise novels, but he’ll light some incense for whatever spirit it was. It’s freaking people out so much, maybe more than it did back when Kakashi started bringing them everywhere.

“It’s actually very little erotica with lots of hilarious melodrama,” says Itachi.

“We should start up a book club,” says Asuma. “Make it a stress relief thing.”

“Shouldn’t we be more concerned about whatever prompted this meeting?” asks Kurenai, from her spot beside Asuma.

“Probably something boring,” says Asuma. “Have we done those genin evaluation things?”

“There are genin evaluations?” asks Itachi, sparing a glance for Asuma.

“I thought the accident with Neji made you more attentive,” says Guy.

“I have learned my lesson and I am very remorseful,” says Itachi, without looking up from his book. “But nobody told me anything about paperwork.”

“You are lucky that Neji was strong enough to survive your negligence,” says Guy.

The door to the conference room cracks opens before Itachi, or anyone else, has a chance to respond. Eiji squeezes his large frame through the doorway, then scans the room absentmindedly before walking towards the empty seat beside Itachi. He rubs his eyes and yawns, then sags onto the chair.

“I didn’t know the mouthy medic got promoted,” says Asuma. “Good for him.”

“He can hear you, and not good for him,” says Eiji, laying his head on the table. “I’m so hungry.”

“Do you want me to send a clone for one of your disgusting sugary drinks?” asks Itachi.

“Ah, young love,” says Anko, letting out an exaggerated sigh.

“Just make sure it doesn’t explode,” says Guy.

And they say nice guys don’t hold grudges. 

“Jumbo Triple-Berry Threat slushie, and chicken teriyaki with fried vegetable rice,” says Eiji. “Extra sauce, hold the vegetables. Just plain fried rice, in fact.”

“Dango for me,” says Anko.

Kakashi asks for some food himself, and within seconds, everyone in the room has ordered snacks. It’s up in the air whether Itachi will listen to anyone’s order besides Eiji’s, but Kakashi doesn’t want to be the only one not eating if Itachi turns out to be in an accommodating mood. 

Nara Shikaku arrives a few minutes later, before Itachi’s clone has arrived with or without the junk food. The man looks as exhausted as Eiji. Considering they’re talking about a Nara, it does little to help Kakashi’s already frayed nerves.

“You look like an Inuzuka dog pissed under your nose,” says Anko. 

“I’m gonna keep this brief,” says Shikaku, as Kurenai’s nose crinkles. “First, we are hosting the chuunin exams in two months—no, spare me the complaints. I need evaluations on the genin, and I needed them three weeks ago.”

“I honestly ignored this paperwork because I didn’t know about it,” says Itachi.

“I don’t even have genin,” says Eiji, without raising his head from the table. “What am I doing here?”

“You have the three you accepted after an intensive recruitment drive for the med corp,” says Shikaku.

“Alright, two things,” says Eiji, lifting his head halfway, “I’m desperate and would have taken almost anyone, but Hyuuga, Yakushi, and Haruno were the only ones who didn’t quit on me. And two, it’ll be an ‘intensive’ recruitment drive when you comb through the records and order anyone with potential to the med corp.”

“I’ve always wanted to be operated on by someone who was forced into medicine,” says Asuma.

“We’re not here for philosophy,” says Shikaku, before Eiji can answer. “Just evaluate the genin.”

“Well,” says Eiji, sighing, “Yakushi has a good memory and he can follow orders, but he’s also like fifty. If he could pass the chuunin exams, he would have already. I think there’s something wrong with his chakra.”

“You can be a great shinobi without chakra,” says Guy.

“Maybe, but you can’t be much of a surgeon,” says Eiji. “There’s Haruno, who’s got a lot of potential. With her chakra control, she should be way farther along than she is, so I assume her jounin’s incompetent.”

“I’m her jounin,” says Itachi.

“Then I guess we should be glad she’s alive,” says Eiji. 

Anko snorts at the same time as Kurenai narrows her eyes. Itachi seems unfazed. It’s a good sign that the other kid feels safe criticizing him, and publicly. Kakashi wouldn’t advertise it, but he’s always on the lookout for signs that Itachi has let his power go to his head.

“So,” says Nara, looking directly at Itachi. “What’s your assessment? Can your genin pass the chuunin exams?”

“If this is about some kind of inter-village tournament, then Sasuke and Naruto can compete without embarrassing us too much,” says Itachi. He pauses, then finally puts the book aside. “But as far as actually functioning as chuunin. . . I admit I don’t have enough information to accurately judge that.”

“You would if you went on missions with them,” says Asuma. “Stop being lazy and escort a few merchants to the capital. You can read your erotica on the way.”

“They don’t have to go that far,” says Guy. “There are always common bandits causing trouble for the nearby towns.”

“That’s not the point anymore,” says Anko. “If we’re hosting a tournament, then the goal should be to get as many impressive genin as possible into the competition. Guy, you’ve got a prodigy on your team, right?”

“Lee does surpass my expectations every day,” says Guy.

“Come on,” says Kakashi. “You know she’s talking about Neji.”

“I know, and she shouldn’t be,” says Guy. “It’s true that Neji is deadly and intelligent, but his style is hardly flashy. If the goal is to impress with style, then Lee and Tenten are more suitable.”

“I taught him Water Release and the Water Dragon Bullet Jutsu,” says Itachi. “He can be flashy if he wants to be.”

“And there’s been all this slander that you can’t teach,” says Asuma. 

“Not that I can’t,” says Itachi. “That I won’t. And it is slander because I do show them things all the time. It’s not my fault they don’t understand.”

“Oh, he’s just like Kakashi,” says Guy. “There’s a reason everyone in our age group stopped sparring with him.”

“Nobody cares about anyone else’s genius angst,” says Nara, before Kakashi can make a half-hearted attempt to defend himself. “Kurenai, how’s your team?”

“Shino and Kiba will perform well, and they’ve got good heads on their shoulders.” She doesn’t look away from Nara, but she does stop breathing for an instant. Her expression doesn’t change, but Kakashi can still tell that she’s bracing herself for something.

She’s better than Itachi’s medic at hiding her emotions, but still far from an expert.

“Hinata—”

“—Oh, yeah!” interrupts Eiji, picking himself up from the table and slouching back on his chair. If he notices Kurenai’s slight glare, he doesn’t show it. 

Kakashi bets he just doesn’t notice it.

“She needs help,” continues Eiji, shaking his head. “She needs therapy, or a vacation, or something, because never in my life have I dealt with a ninja that gets the literal, physical shakes every time you so much as look at her.”

“She’s determined and resilient,” says Kurenai, and though she’s too professional to glare, anyone could hear the warning in her voice.

“That makes it worse,” says Eiji. “What’s the point of resilience when you suck that bad?”

Kakashi feels Guy bristling on the chair next to him. Though he mostly agrees with Eiji, he still searches Itachi’s face for some signal that he’s planning to get his medic under control. People tend to get emotional during discussions of innate talent, usually when they feel like they weren’t blessed with much of it (objective word there being feel, since as far as Kakashi can tell, Guy has never hurt for some unfair, innate talent).

Luckily, Itachi’s clone chooses that moment to appear in the conference room, arms full of bags with delicious-smelling junk food. Eiji is thoroughly distracted, and Kurenai is mature enough to let the matter drop. 

Nara knows when a subject is not worth the ensuing shitstorm it might trigger. “Asuma, your team?”

“Not ready,” says Asuma, without a hint a of shame. “Shikamaru would probably make an excellent chuunin, if someone persuades him to take it seriously.”

“Hey, that’s my dango,” Anko tells Eiji, as Nara’s dark eyes narrow.

“You’ll get fat if you eat too much,” says Eiji, with his mouth full.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” says Anko.

“You’d fucking know,” says Eiji.

Kakashi reaches for his chopsticks, placing his box in front of his face to give himself some measure of privacy. Hopefully, a fight will break out, and he’ll be able to down his fried vegetable rice in the commotion.

“Who turned this into teenager movie night?” asks Kurenai.

“Itachi, when he decided to be nice to his boyfriend, and the rest of us took advantage,” says Asuma. “You got my order wrong, by the way.”

“They were out of green tea, so I got unsweetened regular tea,” says Itachi. 

“You do realize this is actually water with dyed sugar, right?” asks Kakashi.

“No one cares,” says Nara, rubbing along the scar on his right cheek. “Just. . . train the genin as best you can for the tournament. I assume most of them can do a simple exercise in the Forest of Death.”

“I think he needs to lower his expectations,” Asuma mock-whispers to Kurenai.

Nara pretends not to hear him. “As you know, Kakashi and Guy were on a long-term recon mission recently.”

“It was magnificent,” says Guy. 

“Not really; total shitshow,” says Kakashi.

“We trekked along Fire Country’s borders, searching for a shadowy organization wreaking havoc across the shinobi world,” says Guy. “Akatsuki.”

“Mostly, they seem to be random terrorists doing dumb shit,” says Kakashi. “Missing-nin from an assortment of hidden villages, including ours.”

“Orochimaru,” says Guy, “who is still mostly our village’s responsibility, even though he’s started his own shinobi faction.”

“Sound-nin.” Kakashi frowns. “Mostly bandits. . . and children I don’t like to think about too much. He’s selling heroin cut with any random shit.”

“We ran into a pair of psychopaths near the southeastern coast,” says Guy. “A Kiri missing-nin who kills people because his god tells him to, and another from Takigakure obsessed with money, of all meaningless things. They were both. . . difficult to kill.”

“So, can I go now?” asks Eiji, who’s finished inhaling his chicken teriyaki. “Because, no offense, but I don’t care about any of this.”

“Come on.” Asuma rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you thirty, or something?”

“I’m nineteen and four-fifths.” 

Asuma opens his mouth, then smiles. “That makes this,” he gestures at Itachi and Eiji, “about eighty percent less disturbing.”

“There needs to be at least a ten year age difference before it’s weird,” says Anko.

“Can we please keep on topic?” says Nara. “Am I really gonna have to order you assholes to stop acting like kids?”

“Right,” says Kakashi. “So, Akatsuki. Hard to say what they have in common, but they work in pairs. And they’re kidnapping jinchuuriki.”

“For what?”

Guy shrugs. “No one knows. No one likes talking about the jinchuuriki at all. But Akatsuki has killed the Two-Tail’s vessel, and the Five-Tail’s vessel.”

“What happened to the bijuu?” asks Kurenai. 

“We don’t know that either,” says Kakashi. “It’s a mystery.”

“I fought a member of Akatsuki, and I was not impressed,” says Itachi. “He had mouths in the palms of his hands.”

“You weren’t impressed by _mouths in the palms of his hands?_ ” asks Eiji.

“He ranted about art while throwing really obvious clay explosives at me,” says Itachi. “I was assisting ANBU in a completely unrelated assassination, and I didn’t even know who he was. He was so obnoxious.”

“He could probably give himself blowjobs,” says Eiji.

Anko chuckles, and almost everyone else at the table groans. Even Kurenai can’t suppress a frown. 

“What, you guys hear ‘mouths in the palms of his hands’ and don’t _immediately_ think of self-blowjobs?”

“I didn’t think of it,” says Itachi. “But now that you bring it up. . .”

“It is the natural train of thought,” agrees Kakashi. 

“The explosive clay came from those mouths,” says Itachi.

“Alright,” says Nara. “You can go, Eiji. Thanks for your valuable input.”

Eiji shrugs, salutes him with the half-empty red drink, and gets up. “Good luck with all this oral sex talk.” He walks off while slurping his drink, and waves goodbye at Itachi when he reaches the door.

Itachi doesn’t smile, but he waves back.

“He’s a treasure,” says Asuma, once the door closes behind him.

“Anyway,” says Nara. “Continue your report.” 

“Right, kidnapping jinchuuriki, missing bijuu, missing-nin, intriguing questions about auto-fellatio,” says Kakashi. “There’s an Uchiha with them, with a missing left eye, and ‘strange’ limbs on the left side of his body, according to Neji.”

“Neji?” asks Kurenai. “What could he possibly have to do with an S-rank missing-nin?”

“Nothing,” says Kakashi, “except for being with me during that S-rank mission. The Uchiha tried to kill him to get to me.”

“You don’t have anything to add?” Asuma asks Itachi.

“I never severed more than one limb, and no Uchiha have gone missing since my attack,” says Itachi. “It has to be someone who was declared MIA or dead sometime before five years ago.”

“Uchiha Obito?” asks Asuma.

“No.” Kakashi hasn’t even bothered to consider it. 

“Which one of his eyes have you got in your head?” asks Anko.

The left. “I saw him die,” says Kakashi. “And even if I hadn’t, he would have never betrayed Konoha. He loved this village.”

“Did you know him?” Kurenai asks Itachi.

“I’m telling you, it’s not him,” says Kakashi. He doesn’t realize that his hands have curled into fists until Guy grabs his shoulder.

“We were in different social circles, both in the clan and outside,” says Itachi. “He was around a decade older than me.”

“He knew of you,” says Kakashi. “You hadn’t talked yet when he died, and he was worried about what the rest of your clan would do if you didn’t measure up to their expectations.” Once, Obito had considered that he might be the only Uchiha who wouldn’t shun the supposedly defective heir.

“We’re not here to speculate,” says Nara. “Just share what we know about Akatsuki and their skills so far.”

Kakashi lets Guy do the talking from that point on. They went on the mission together, and Neji probably reported all they know about the mystery Uchiha’s powers. His mouth fills up with vinegar the more he thinks about how everyone he considers a friend now, or close to it, is happy to assume the worst about a man they never once noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here.
> 
> Four more days until I get back to work. Hopefully, I can get another chapter out before then.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My last update before officially returning to work. A little rushed, but I hope you guys enjoy it.
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always!

Konoha says goodbye to summer with the Festival of Falling Leaves. The first one Sasuke remembers going to had been held the year of Itachi’s attack. Itachi himself had taken Sasuke, and Sasuke can’t forget how pathetically _happy_ he’d been that his important, serious older brother had taken time out of his busy schedule to take him to the village proper. Cousin Shisui had interrupted them as they ate cotton candy, and Sasuke remembers wishing, in childish spite, that the smirky bastard would just die.

Itachi had killed Shisui by the end of the week.

Five years later, Sasuke sits with Rei and Daisuke, the young Uchiha twins who have followed his footsteps at the Academy, and thinks that they shouldn’t be the only ones who don’t have stories to tell about how much fun they had at the Festival of Falling Leaves. They look like stereotypical Uchiha: straight dark hair, pale skin, and eyes dark as coal. Rei carries herself like the archetypal clan brat, and Daisuke’s stubbornly trusting nature is no better.

“I want to go to the Festival,” he tells them, though the mere idea of drunken crowds of civilians gives him the beginnings of a headache. “There might be street performers.”

Rei doesn’t look away from the pond in Sasuke’s backyard, but Daisuke looks up at him with hopeful dark eyes.

“If you want, you can come with me.”

Even Rei can’t hide a tiny smile at that. They go by their house to pick up a pair sweaters in case the weather cools further once the sun goes down, and then they’re off to the Monument. Konoha’s celebrations always start there.

Sasuke’s belly churns the moment they pass the first vendor, an aging woman who glares at Daisuke like he’s a stray dog with rabies when the boy smiles at some shiny trinkets she’s hawking. Rei and Daisuke might look like children to him, but they’re just little Uchiha traitors to the rest of the village. The fans on the backs of their shirts might as well be targets.

He walks up to the old woman and buys a pair of her cheap necklaces. Either the money, or Sasuke’s headband, or his glare, prompts her to accept the cash. Sasuke doesn’t really care which one. He gives the necklaces to the twins, and when they start gazing at the blunt shuriken charms like they’re white gold rather than cheap ore, he resolves to buy whatever random nonsense catches their eyes. If he runs out of money, he can always raid the drunks that frequent Konoha’s Red Lights district.

Things get louder as they approach the large square a few blocks away from the Monument. Shops had set up long before the festivities started, and the more hardcore drinkers are well on their way to aggressive bluster. Sasuke’s calculating how long until he can usher the twins back home without making them think that he’s running away with his tail between his legs. Leading them to a bench that hides behind a cluster of stubborn bushes that blocks the view of the stupid festival is the only compromise he can think of.

They’re happy enough to chatter at each other and make a game of watching the festival for signs of their classmates. Rei mentions a little girl with civilian parents who doesn’t seem to hate them, pointing towards a couple with several kids in tow.

“Can we go say hello, Sasuke-sama?” asks Daisuke.

Sasuke considers his options. The mother seems occupied with a screaming kid that barely knows how to walk, and there are a couple of teenagers ignoring the little girl Sasuke assumes must be the twins’ classmate. If they go over there, the civilians might not even notice them. But someone else might, and if a fight breaks out, then that girl’s parents might order her to stay away from those Uchiha clan brats to avoid trouble in the future, and Rei and Daisuke might end up more isolated.

He doesn’t know why he cares. The twins won’t ever be welcomed in the village, not really, and the sooner they come to terms with it, the better. It should make them alert, resilient shinobi, if nothing else.

A head of soft pink hair enters his field of vision, and before he realizes it, he’s bent down to hide completely behind the bush.

“Sasuke-sama?” asks Rei, staring down at him with wide dark eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he says. But he doesn’t move his head from her lap.

He doesn’t want Sakura spotting him, though they get along well now, for the most part. She’s stopped asking him on dumb dates weeks and weeks ago, and seems busy enough with her med corp stuff. The last thing he needs is for her to walk over and start acting like the twins are Exploding Tags about to go off. That would annihilate the goodwill he has for her now, and Naruto would never stop pestering him about teamwork and how great Sakura is, for real.

“Sasuke-sama, we can go home if you want to,” says Rei.

Sasuke grunts and straightens up. There’s no reason that Sakura will notice him, and if she does, so what?

“Let’s go try the chicken teriyaki at that stand over there,” he says, standing up. “You can talk to your friend if you want.”

Sakura must have walked off to another section of the fair because Sasuke doesn’t run into her, or even notice pink hair anywhere. He thanks the forest for the small favor, and lets the twins approach their friend, looking out for any signs of trouble. The sun reaches the horizon, bathing the sky in an orange glow, and gusts of cool wind knock dried leaves off their branches. A group of kunoichi have started singing some traditional tune, as the twins play ANBU and missing-nin with their Academy friends. No one pays them much attention.

Sasuke smiles to himself and keeps watching. The twins are quicker than the civilian girl, and they work as a team even though the game is supposed to be everyone-for-themselves. Rei distracts the girl as she tries to chase Daisuke, giggling so too loudly to pass for even a mock-ANBU. In the carefree manner of a half-trained child, Daisuke runs backward without paying proper attention to his surroundings.

His back hits a tawny gourd strapped to a short kid’s back. Sasuke’s on his feet before he registers the rage in the kid’s face. A projectile that he doesn’t recognize is going for Daisuke—and the civilian girl. Sasuke’s slips arms around Daisuke’s chest and grabs the other kid by the back of her shirt collar. Something rough abrades his heel as he jumps away, pushing the kids behind him.

“Run away,” he tells Daisuke.

The crowd’s attention is on them now. ANBU will be on the scene in seconds, but Sasuke doesn’t trust that they will be enough, or that they won’t blame the Uchiha involved on principle. Only when the kid turns around to shoot Sasuke a flat glare, revealing a foreign forehead protector strapped to the wide belt keeping the gourd on his back, do Sasuke’s nerves begin to settle. ANBU will side with the Uchiha over some random Suna-nin. Or so Sasuke hopes.

“You’re stealing my kill,” says the Suna-nin, in a deep voice that should be coming out of someone decades older.

“They’re just kids,” says Sasuke.

Daisuke and Rei are off, probably with the civilian kid in tow. Konoha’s citizens are looking at Sasuke and the odd Suna-nin, interested, but too used to shinobi spats to try and get involved. A string of sand dances around the kid, passing through his short red hair. Sasuke lets his eyes bleed red and bends his knees, then another Suna-nin steps towards the redhead in a forced, casual slouch.

“Come on, Gaara,” he says, voice pitched a little too high. “Let’s not blow this out of proportion.”

The kid’s eyes turn towards the other Suna-nin, and Sasuke seizes the opportunity to flee. ANBU will be on the scene in a matter of moments, if it isn’t already. He has to make sure that the twins aren’t in danger.

* * *

 

It’s a little too easy to lose the rest of his family, and by “the rest of his family”, Neji means Hiashi-sama. Hanabi is too young to keep him in sight when he wants to hide from her, Hinata too incompetent, and his mother is not a ninja. Neji has never managed to work out just how strong her Byakugan is, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that Hiashi-sama likes to give him crumbs of autonomy while allowing the rest of the main family to treat him like the slave that he is.

Regardless, he might as well do his best to enjoy the festival. If he disappears among the civilians, or just rank-and-file chuunin, he’ll be just another anonymous Hyuuga for a little while. He might run into that old man who sells exotic birds and rescue one of them, maybe even teach it to fly from its cage. Half the time, it doesn’t work. Birds that have been caged since birth never learn the skills to survive in the wild, but he can at least give them a bigger cage.

He would look for Tenten and Lee, but then it’d be obvious who he is just by Lee’s green jumpsuit. The entire village knows about Might Guy’s stupid jumpsuit, and that he’s got that obnoxious Hyuuga prodigy on his team. Tenten and Lee will be fine without him, which is for the best. Neji suspects he doesn’t have long. Some of his cousins get nastier with every passing day. He’s honestly surprised that it’s been more than a month since one of them activated his Cursed Seal. Hiashi-sama must have forbidden it after his surgery.

Perhaps he owes Itachi some gratitude.

Neji smirks to himself, then approaches a dango stand. Other Hyuuga compare him to Itachi sometimes, mostly to make him look bad, and it’s a bit of a relief to know that the comparisons are dramatic exaggerations. He wouldn’t want the Hyuuga elders to have a slave as powerful as Itachi.

To avoid the worst of the crowds, he moves a few blocks away from the Monument, where there are no civilian families dragging children around, and bar owners are setting up gambling tables and selling cheap liquor that’s sitting in ice boxes. The only shinobi around are ANBU, waiting for the inevitable fights that will break out once people have been drinking for a few hours. Beautiful women clad in thin strips of clothing flutter around the chairs arranged in a haphazard fashion all over the street, some pretending that they are not there on commission to goad dumb men into drinking and gambling away more than they should.

His family will avoid the area like it’s infested with maggots.

“This isn’t where I expected to find you.”

Neji startles for just an instant, but he still frowns at himself before turning around to look at Itachi, who stares back with a blank expression. “Why look for me in the first place?”

Itachi doesn’t answer as he ushers Neji to a pair of chairs in the corner, then shrouds them in a genjutsu that even Neji can’t quite see through without fully activating his Byakugan. The noise around them becomes muffled, as though he’s put pillows over Neji’s ears.

“We need a measure of privacy,” says Itachi, his voice calm and clear.

Neji wonders if the ANBU scattered about can tell what has happened, or even that something has happened. Itachi technically almost killed him a couple of weeks ago. Maybe he should be scared.

“I want to talk about your cousin Jian’s suicide,” says Itachi.

“Why?” Neji can’t think of any reason that Itachi would care, and he’s too hard to read, except around Sasuke.

“If I tell you and someone finds out that I’ve spoken to you about this, I’d have to trust that you’d lie,” says Itachi. “Just say I forced you to talk to me.”

“Will you?”

Itachi doesn’t say anything for a long moment. A cool wind makes Neji want to shiver, but he refuses. Itachi is wearing mesh and it doesn’t bother him.

“No,” says Itachi. “If there’s anything for me to figure out, then I trust that you know what it is without me having to ask any specific questions.”

Transparent praise. Neji’s not some idiot who’ll jump at the chance to prove that he’s as clever as people say he is.

“He didn’t kill himself,” Neji says, because his family wouldn’t want him to be blabbing this to the Uchiha traitor, of all people. “And it wasn’t someone in the main family who killed him. He was. . . obedient.”

“How are you so sure?” asks Itachi.

“You’re the one who asked me,” says Neji.

“True, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept your theories as gospel,” says Itachi. “As far as I can tell, no one’s as sure of themselves as you, and your confidence is not always warranted.”

So much for the praise strategy. Neji smirks. Has Itachi ever interrogated anyone without using genjutsu on them?

“Jian’s son turns thirty a week from now, and his first grandchild will be born by the end of the month,” says Neji. “He was very excited, and planning for a small celebration. If he was going to kill himself, he’d have done it after the party, if only to avoid souring it for his family.”

“Thank you,” says Itachi, with a slight bow.

The genjutsu melts away. Itachi disappears as the atmosphere around Neji becomes less muffled. He takes a steadying breath, then returns to the festival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here. With a review of [The Purge](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/2016/06/the-purge-entertaining-but-fails-on.html), in case anyone wants to hear my thoughts on a movie that came out on 2013 :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the drawbacks of writing maybe for an hour a day is that chapters get longer, but the pacing slows down.
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always! Though this one is a little rushed, so assume any mistakes are just sections she didn't get a chance to read over.

Even if Naruto was as dumb as people like to pretend, he would have noticed the flood of foreign ninja staying in Konoha. Some make a point to invade the fancier hotels that merchants favor, but most scurry around Konoha’s less pleasant hidey-holes, the ones that classy civilians pretend don’t exist. More ANBU than usual patrol Konoha’s streets, and though it has nothing to do with Naruto, it prickles the hairs on the back of his neck to see so many masked ninja hanging all over roofs and utility poles. For all he knows, they are ANBU from other villages.

“Has this ever happened before?” Naruto asks Sasuke one morning while they’re alone at the pond.

Sakura’s doing another ER shift, which would normally be fine, but now Naruto wishes he had both his teammates in sight at all times. Even Itachi, though the fucker can probably flatten any enemy ninja that might cross his path.

“I asked around,” says Sasuke, which Naruto translates to ‘I asked my family’. “Looks like Konoha is hosting the next chuunin exams.”

Naruto’s excitement is on its way to bubbling out of his mouth in a stream of speculation when he catches a glimpse of pink hair from the corner of his eye.

“Sakura? Hey, Sakura!” He rises to his feet as she approaches them, scratching her head and smiling tiredly. “I thought you were gonna be at the hospital.”

“No, I did a night-shift yesterday,” she says, falling into a seated position besides Sasuke with a long sigh. The ever-present bags under her eyes are darker than usual. “I’m too revved up to fall asleep right away, so I figured I’d come to practice in case Itachi’s in a teaching mood. I’ll pass out this afternoon.”

“He’s never in a teaching mood,” says Sasuke.

“Have you noticed all the foreign ninja running around?” asks Naruto, sitting down in front of them.

“Yeah,” says Sakura. “A couple of Kiri-nin got food poisoning last night. They shat their brains out in the ER for hours. And a couple of Sand ninja got into a snit with some guys from that new, small village. Sound, or Music, or whatever it is. Three broken arms and five stab wounds, on ninja who didn’t trust us. Good times.”

Sasuke lets out a low snort.

“So what do you think about them?” Naruto asks, searching Sakura’s gaze.

She shrugs. “They get sick and injured, just like everyone else.”

Naruto opens his mouth, then closes it. What can he say to that? And why does it make him uneasy? It’s not like Sakura’s _wrong_ , just. . . She would have been more excited and anxious than him about foreign ninja a few short weeks ago. Now she sits beside Sasuke, eyes closed and long hair tied into a topknot atop her head, tired and disinterested. She’s still the prettiest girl in the village, as far as Naruto’s concerned, but she no longer selects clothes meant to flatter her. A loose red shirt devoid of flower patterns or prints hangs over her shoulders, and tight black slacks cover her legs. Instead of sandals, she wears close-toed combat boots to protect her feet from blood, mucus, and other unpleasant fluids.

Those are just superficial changes, Naruto supposes. It’s more important that Sakura’s more confident, both around Sasuke and about her own skills. She spars with more determination, and pushes through exhaustion with the same drive she reads through all those dense medical textbooks. The last time she tried to do that water dragon jutsu, it climbed up the waterfall and bit off a chunk of one of the rocks near the top. Though she’s still slower and clunkier than him or Sasuke, Naruto bets she could take out most of the other kunoichi in their class. Even Ino. So what if she doesn’t wear pretty clothes or lets her hair down anymore?

“I see you’re all here. Good.”

Naruto jumps at the sound of Itachi’s voice, more surprised by it than he’d been in a long while. “Bastard!” he cries, then sputters as he gestures in Itachi’s general direction.

He looks about as fresh as Sakura looks exhausted. And much prettier, Naruto hates to admit. Why doesn’t Itachi care that his hair is smoother and shinier than any girl’s when he wears it loose like that?

“I’m sure you’ve all noticed that we have foreign shinobi visiting us,” says Itachi, unconcerned as always.

“Yeah, we’ve noticed,” says Naruto. “Are you actually gonna be useful for once and tell us what’s going on?”

“Konoha’s hosting the chuunin exams in a week-and-a-half,” says Itachi.

“Oh, right.” Naruto glances at Sasuke. Sakura’s sudden appearance had distracted him from the chuunin exam thing.

“Do you want us to take it?” asks Sasuke.

“It makes no difference to me,” says Itachi, with a small shrug. “I will approve it if you decide to enter, though I warn you that there will be an inter-village tournament at the end. Though it won’t be necessarily to the death, many would die rather than embarrass their village.”

“I’d say that ship sailed a long time ago for me,” says Sasuke.

“Also,” continues Itachi, unfazed, “you must enter in a three-man genin squad, so you’ll all need to come to an agreement about this.”

Naruto’s questions drown in unease from Sasuke’s casual mention of his family’s reputation. He shouldn’t be so flippant about that, not even to Itachi. _Especially_ not to Itachi.

“Does it have to be your official genin team?” asks Sakura.

“I suppose not,” says Itachi, tilting his head. “But you’d have to get approval from another jounin if you want to form another squad.”

“I’m not going to do that,” says Sakura, looking away. “I was only wondering.”

“You don’t have to enter if you don’t want to,” says Naruto, without looking at Sasuke. He’ll want to enter, but Naruto won’t put more pressure on Sakura. Not even for Sasuke.

“I know that,” says Sakura. “Maybe I want to enter for myself. A chuunin’s salary is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you’re in the med corp.”

“You don’t have to come to a decision right away,” says Itachi. “The deadline to enter is this Friday.”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” demands Naruto.

“I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily,” says Itachi.

“Bullshit.” Naruto snorts. “You probably just forgot.”

“I have an excellent memory,” says Itachi, reaching into his pocket for a mission scroll. “Regardless, I do have some good news. All these foreigners have made our merchants antsy, so we have plenty of D-rank guard missions for just about any business in the village.”

“You’re gonna make us spend the last week before a tournament posturing for bullshit businesses?” asks Sasuke. “I know you don’t want to train us, but there’s no need to actively sabotage us.”

“It’s not my concern if you can’t make good use of your time during a stupid non-mission,” says Itachi.

“Do you have some kind of compulsion to be an asshole whenever you get the chance?” Ever since Sasuke confessed that Itachi is his _literal_ brother, Naruto mentally gags at all his snarky put-downs.

He doubts that Sasuke is as unaffected by them as he pretends. His words from that night still haunt Naruto: _once, he told me if I could sneak into his room while he was there, he’d help me train every day, rain or shine, for a month. I never managed it_. Does Sasuke blame himself for not being good enough to earn his brother’s attention? For not being good enough to make his brother not choose the village over their family? Not that Naruto thinks that Itachi should have chosen the Uchiha over the village, but. . . he doesn’t even know.

“Are we all going to ruminate about how terrible I am?” asks Itachi. “Or are we going to train?”

* * *

 

It’s taking Itachi longer than he expected to investigate the deaths of the four surgeons. Ibiki has blocked his attempt to examine the Intelligence reports on the matter, and while Itachi could easily get his hands on them, he’s decided that indulging Eiji’s hysterics is no reason to cause further rifts between himself, Hokage-sama, and the Council. Besides, investigating the matter without biasing himself with Ibiki’s conclusion has its merits. And it’s not like he has a lot on his plate lately anyway.

“Well, you must know being a jounin is exceptionally stressful,” Nobuo’s wife tells him that afternoon, as she pours him a cup of bitter tea. “As I’m sure someone of your stature must know.”

“I have some idea,” says Itachi. “Might I trouble you for some sugar?”

He could probably dispatch his clone right under her nose without trouble, but he still waits for her to excuse herself to the kitchen. Many shinobi have fallen because they underestimated a civilian, and it’s very tempting to underestimate Nobuo’s widow. The woman barely reaches Itachi’s chin, and her shoulders are narrower than Sakura’s. She avoids Itachi’s gaze as though he is the daimyo. Her arm had trembled as she poured the tea. Even without being allowed access to Ibiki’s files, Itachi has gleaned that Nobuo used to beat her and constantly cheat on her. Their neighbors still gossip about it nonstop, though Nobuo has been dead for over two months. There’s much debate regarding the widow’s new lover, and whether she has moved on too soon after her husband’s death.

“I have both brown and white,” the widow declares, walking back into the living room with two sugar shakers cradled in her hands. The brief respite from Itachi’s presence had not improved her demeanor. If anything, she looks paler.

Still, Itachi doesn’t let his guard down. Anyone with an smidgen of sense exaggerates their weaknesses and hides their strengths. He’s personally made a point of acting like he has even less stamina than he actually has, and no one knows just how powerful his genjutsu are. Danzo would probably piss himself if he finds out that Itachi put the Kyuubi under a deep, genjutsu-induced slumber. The beast might not wake even if Naruto’s life is in danger, which Itachi doesn’t feel guilty since Naruto himself had asked him for help.

“Brown sugar, please” says Itachi, though he has no intention of drinking the tea. “I want to ask you a few questions regarding your husband’s death.”

“I was shocked,” Nobuo’s widow says quickly. She busies herself with sweetening the tea. “Just shocked. The children were devastated. They still are.”

Rumors indicate that Nobuo used to beat his two children—twelve and fifteen—neither of which had ever been enrolled at the Academy.

“Did Nobuo ever share any plans to commit suicide with you?”

“His work was so important and tiring,” says his widow. “And those two other surgeons had just died.”

“That’s not what I asked,” says Itachi.

Nobuo’s widow lets out a delicate sniff before she opens her mouth. Then she closes it, and wipes a tear from her cheek. She’s either an excellent actress, or her distress is genuine. Not that it would annoy Itachi any less either way.

“I don’t care if you killed him,” says Itachi, willing to throw a shuriken through the dark in hopes that it will end the interaction faster.

“How could I have?” cries the widow. “His hands were knives, he moved fast as a snake, and this village worshipped him!”

“That’s an exaggeration,” says Itachi. Though he can easily imagine Nobuo reporting an inflated degree of importance to the family he’d terrorized on a regular basis.

“All those women at work, the ones he had. . . _relations_ with, wanted him dead,” says the widow. Anger twists her face into a harsh scowl that makes her look tough for the first time. “Any of them could have killed him. That whore’s son, Eiji! Nobuo always complained about him.”

“So you don’t think he committed suicide?”

“That’s not what I said.”

The woman shuts down after that, and Itachi sees no reason to push further. He’s gotten what he came for. Nobuo’s wife doesn’t believe that he committed suicide. The clone yields no new revelations, just a flash of a pristine home under a waft of ammonia and artificial floral scents. If there is a new lover, then he’s as controlling as Nobuo, or his widow can’t bring herself to meet the man in her children’s home. Or perhaps the family doesn’t know how to live without militaristic cleanliness.

Muddled theories swim around in Itachi’s head as he heads to his apartment. It takes him a little too long to notice that Kakashi has broken into his house again, so he walks in with a set of shuriken between his fingers.

“Someone’s tense,” Kakashi says from the tatami in Itachi’s living room.

“Someone needs to stop getting evicted,” says Itachi, putting the shuriken away.

“How’re you so sure I was evicted?” demands Kakashi. “I mean, I was, but are you stalking me or something?”

“Please,” says Itachi. He strides to his kitchen and opens the fridge, then the blast of cold air makes him frown. He realizes he’s not hungry, and slams the door shut.

He hears Kakashi getting to his feet in slow, measured movements. “Why are you looking into those surgeons’ deaths?”

“Boredom,” says Itachi. He doesn’t mean for it to be a lie.

“I thought you were reading the _Make-Out Paradise_ novels because you’re bored.”

“I’m up to book twenty-three.” Itachi meets Kakashi eye and allows himself a small smirk. “I was not expecting Jiraiya-sama to include an interlude between two male characters. He hasn’t even written the obligatory lesbian threesome yet.”

“I can only imagine that he sneaked into the men’s hot springs by mistake at some point,” says Kakashi, shrugging.

Itachi leans against the fridge. “How come you’re the only one who doesn’t find it strange that I’m interested in sex?”

“I recognize and respect your humanity despite the facial muscle impairment you struggle with.”

“That’s pretty funny,” says Itachi, even as he instinctively suppresses a grin. “I’m looking into it because Eiji asked me to.”

“And?”

“Neither Jian nor Nobuo’s families think they killed themselves,” says Itachi. “I don’t think it’s denial.”

“And did they also happen to name a possible murderer?”

“No.” There’s no point in bringing up Nobuo’s widow. The mere idea that Eiji could murder someone for a promotion is preposterous. “Why are you here?”

“So the bonding moment is gone, is what you’re saying?”

Itachi looks at him.

Kakashi runs a hand through his white hair. “I just need to know which Uchiha hates me so much. No offense, but I thought this eye thing of mine was forgotten completely after your little stunt.”

“I told you, it has to be someone who was declared dead before the attempted coup.”

“But who?”

“Kakashi.” There’s no way to ease into this. “You know who.”

“No, no.” Kakashi turns away and covers his face with his hands. “I saw him die.”

“Are you sure?”

Kakashi flickers away without answering. Briefly, Itachi considers sending a crow after him, but Kakashi would sense it. It’s not his place to interfere with that mess. Not yet, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here. Does anyone like romance novels? I've been reviewing Nora Roberts' romantic suspense thrillers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fiddling away at this after work, but I've got so much on my mind lately that things are moving slowly. It's not like I can daydream all day about fanfic anymore so every chapter I'm like. . . eh, what happens next?
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading. This probably would sit on my google drive much longer without her help.

Konoha’s secret libraries aren’t secret enough, as far as Kurenai is concerned. It must be arrogance that drives the higher-ups to keep non-essential personnel files in an unmarked room attached to one of the village’s biggest weapon depots. There are windows on all four walls that stretch almost from the roof to the floor. It’s great for lighting, and for letting in a natural breeze that keeps the area cool and comfortable, but terrible for discretion. Anyone, including the hordes of foreign shinobi visiting for the chuunin exams, can see several Leaf jounin writing and examining reports.

Kurenai figures that she can slip Hinata’s first official evaluation into her file without following formal protocol, where it will hopefully be forgotten at least until after the chuunin exams are over.

“I can practically _hear_ you thinking,” says Anko.

Kurenai doesn’t look up from Hinata’s genin evaluation form. She’s put off handing in the damned things for all three of her genin because she can’t decide how honest to be about Hinata’s progress. Were her circumstances even slightly different, Kurenai probably wouldn’t think twice about it.

“How difficult can this be?” asks Anko. “Her personality’s all wrong for a shinobi, and she doesn’t have the raw talent to make up for it.”

“I don’t recall asking you to come hover over me while I do this,” says Kurenai, running her fingers through her hair. “Sorry, but you’ll have to find someone else to go barhopping with.”

Instead of running off in a huff, Anko slides into the chair in front of Kurenai and crosses her arms on the table. The glittery mesh she likes to wear to clubs scrapes against the smooth surface as she slides closer to Kurenai. “You’re only hesitating because you like this girl and it’s clouding your judgment.”

“That’s not why I’m hesitating.”

“I’ve read your reports since you took this team,” says Anko. “She keeps making mistakes in the field, she keeps making mistakes at the hospital, her family’s written her off—”

“— _That’s_ why I’m hesitating,” says Kurenai. “What do you think is going to happen to her if I report that she’s not cutting it even as a rank-and-file genin?”

“I don’t know.” Anko shrugs. “And to be honest, I don’t care. She’s a Hyuuga, and the Hyuuga do with each other as they please.”

“That’s its own bullshit right there.” Kurenai glares down at the report. She could rank Hinata’s taijutsu at a solid three without raising too many eyebrows. . . but then someone might actually see her trying to fight another genin. “She’s trying, she really is.”

“Great.” Once again, Anko shrugs. “Would you want someone on your squad just because they’re trying, really?”

Kurenai grunts, then cradles her forehead with her hands.

“Hey, cheer up,” says Anko. “There’s no way the Aburame or the Inuzuka will let the Hyuuga heir hold their kids back from this exam spectacle, not that the Hyuuga would want to look weak in comparison, so it looks like this little problem will take care of itself.”

“I don’t want her to die.” Kurenai lets out an exaggerated sigh. “It’d be easier if I did.”

“Nobody wants anyone to die,” says Anko, leaning back in her chair. “That’s just how it works out for most people, especially if they have an obvious kekkei genkai and can’t defend themselves.”

Kurenai opens her mouth, but before she can get a word out, Anko leans forward. “Hey, behind you.”

Anko would not have been so transparent if it was a threat, so Kurenai turns around in her chair. “What?”

“Half a man-bun,” says Anko, gesturing at Uchiha Itachi, who’s depositing three scrolls on one of the shelves. He’s got the front half of his hair up in a topknot, and the rest loose and falling down to the small of his back. Judging by Anko’s reaction, it must be some fashion faux pas.

“Who cares what he does with his hair?” Kurenai turns back around. Though she doubts it would bother him, she doesn’t want Itachi to realize that they’re rudely speculating about him.

“He looks kinda dorky already,” says Anko. “You gotta admire that degree of not giving a fuck.”

“I admire his genjutsu,” says Kurenai, mostly because she wants to avoid the subject of Hinata for a little longer. “I’ve read all his mission reports, all Intelligence records about every missing-nin he’s ever captured, and every prisoner he’s ever helped interrogate. Anything about him that’s not sealed by Hokage-sama and the Council, I’ve read.” It had been the first thing she’d done after getting jounin-level clearance. “His genjutsu are the best in the world. Most victims don’t even remember what happened afterwards, just vague feelings of confusion and terror. He’s literally killed people with just genjutsu.”

“Why not just ask him to train you?”

Kurenai has considered it more than once, but life keeps getting in the way. Missions, her relationship with Asuma (which already eats up most of her free time, and comes with the added bonus of generating rumors that she earned her rank on her back), the genin squad she has been handed, and. . .

“Sounds like he’s a terrible teacher,” she tells Anko.

“I have my doubts about that,” says Anko. “No man who’s a solid eight in bed on the first try can be that terrible at any form of communication. I’d have gone further with him, but that obnoxious medic has the bastard wrapped around his creepily long fingers.”

“Oh, come on.” Kurenai rolls her eyes, and looks back down at Hinata’s evaluation. “He’s a teenager.”

“I’m not the one who’s been stalking his career like a devoted fangirl,” Anko says as she stands up. “Which I probably should, since it’s my job now. Excuse me.”

Kurenai watches her saunter over to Itachi, then forces herself to stop dithering. Hinata will enter the chuunin exams with or without her support, so Kurenai might as well give it.

* * *

 

Sakura knows she’s dreaming because her joints bend like butter, but her muscles are as heavy as slabs of stone. Though she can’t see more than a foot or so in front of her, the garden is as bright as the center of a lit candle. The light is all over the air and inside her head. She can see Neji in front of her, eyes fixed on a scroll that she assumes she brought for him. He’s got his right pant leg bunched up over his knee so he can run his fingertips over his skin.

“If you had my eyes, you could probably figure this out faster.”

Now Sakura’s sure she’s dreaming because Neji would never ever say that. She straightens up, then reaches for his hand and lifts it off his leg. Dream Neji doesn’t edge away from her, or even questions what she’s doing. She trails his fingers’ path with her own hand, and there the dream is inadequate. Sakura has never touched him, outside the few instances when she managed to graze his shirt during their sparring sessions. He also has a faint dusting of fine black hair on his legs, but Sakura has no real reference for what that might feel like. The few times she’s examined patients in the ER were quick and impersonal, and none of them ever had hair as pretty as Neji’s..

She looks up at Neji and is unsurprised to find him smirking down at her. If he was real, he would probably make fun of her for not having the guts to touch him outside of her imagination. Well, it’s her dream so she gets to touch him wherever she wants. Heart pounding, Sakura straddles him like so many brave girls do in the romance novels that she pretends she doesn’t read. Dream Neji smirks harder.

Trust him to be arrogant and obnoxious even in her dreams. Sakura leans down, closing her eyes as she berates herself for finding the _one_ guy in the village who might be more arrogant than Sasuke—

Sasuke!

Sakura wakes up as though lightning just struck her. She looks around her room, certain that _someone_ will be looking down at her with an air of judgment. Though even she admits that no one would care, especially not Sasuke, and falls back on her futon. Her heart’s slowing down already, proving that she’s not still the little girl who graduated the Academy with a list of names for the babies she would eventually have with Sasuke.

_We’re drowning in shit here, so budget your freakouts!_

Eiji had yelled that at the ER during her last shift. Not at her, of course. Eiji has not learned her name yet, and she’s long since worked out what she needs to do to avoid annoying him. The sentiment is applicable to most situations, though.

Grunting, Sakura slides out of her futon and heads for the bathroom. Embarrassing dreams about teammates aside, she promised to meet with Sasuke and Naruto later. They need to come to an agreement about the chuunin exams, which really just means that _she_ needs to decide what she wants to do about it. Sasuke and Naruto want to enter, obviously. And Sakura wants to enter as well. She has no delusions about her chances in a tournament, but that’s not how genin get promoted anyway. If she can demonstrate her tactical skills and chakra control, it might be enough to impress the proctors.

The dark bags under her eyes do little to boost her confidence. Following the med corp’s irregular sleeping schedule has been playing havoc with her face and hair. Ino would probably be too horrified to point and laugh if she could see Sakura now.

_Budget your freakouts._

Easier said than done. What if she can’t impress the proctors? Forget that, what if she can’t even survive the exams? Some of the foreign genin who have ended up in the ER are as big and old as Eiji, and they’ve got such big chips on their shoulders that they can’t wait for a sanctioned tournament to try and kill each other. Sakura can barely last in sparring sessions with fellow Leaf ninja who treat her like she’s made of glass.

That’s a problem she can’t solve by ruminating, so she opens the bathroom cabinet and reaches for her makeup. It’s her free day tomorrow, so she has plenty of time to arrange her face into something presentable. She tells herself that it’s not so bad that she hasn’t had time for makeup because its effect on her face becomes more striking for its rarity. Her favorite black eyeliner makes her green eyes pop so well that she can’t help but go a little overboard with it.

With the cooling weather, Naruto now drags Sasuke to Ichiraku’s on a nightly basis. Sakura thanks the spirits for that stand every day because she would have much more trouble tracking her teammates down without it.

“You let your hair down!” Naruto says when he spots her. He waves at her and slides closer to Sasuke to give her room on the bench where they’re sitting. “It looks nice.”

“I didn’t go to the hospital today,” she says, sneaking a glance towards Sasuke. He’s barely looking at her, much less guessing that she had a dream about touching Hyuuga Neji inappropriately.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened today during our mission,” says Naruto. “One of the weird kids from Suna recognized Sasuke from the festival and started talking some crazy shit about Sasuke ‘stealing his kill’. And he’s talking in the weirdest fucking voice, and his teammate’s acting like a demon is walking among us or whatever. Bastard here probably would’ve just run like he does whenever someone tries to fight him—which, by the way,” he turns towards Sasuke, “is still kinda weird. Back in the Academy, you fucked anyone up just for looking at you wrong.”

“Back in the Academy, I wasn’t a shinobi bound by regulations,” says Sasuke.

“And to be fair,” adds Sakura, “you were the only one in the Academy who kept bothering Sasuke after a couple of fights.”

“People have no dedication,” says Naruto. “Anyway, we can’t really run from Creepy Suna Guy because we’re on a mission, and he wasn’t exactly open to negotiations. He starts talking about how he’s gonna make a paste out of Sasuke’s blood and bones, and normally I admire some inventive shit-talking, but this fucker sounds like he’s talking literally.”

“Are you alright?” Sakura asks Sasuke.

“I’m fine.” Sasuke shrugs. “The guy’s obviously crazy. Somebody else will piss him off between now and the exams.”

Naruto opens his mouth.

“About the exams,” says Sakura, interrupting Naruto’s upcoming speech. “I want to enter.”

“And then. . .” Naruto stares at her. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do it just because we want to.”

“I know that,” says Sakura. “I’m doing it for me. My dad’s arthritis is getting worse, so a chuunin’s salary would really help us.” She would say something about getting better medical training, but the med corp is too understaffed for that.

“You can always steal,” says Sasuke, after slurping a string of noodles. “Red Lights District, second and fourth Fridays of the month. It’s a gold mine.”

“Those people work hard for their money,” protests Sakura, though mostly she’s just scared she would get caught.

“And then they go waste it on hookers and drugs,” says Sasuke, shrugging. “Just tell yourself you’re saving them from a venereal infection.”

“Wow, if I didn’t know any better, I’d call that a joke,” says Naruto. “But he’s right, Sakura. I’m not sure money is the best reason to enter these exams. If the med corp is as fucked up as everyone says, maybe you could just ask for a promotion?”

“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen with a single completed C-rank mission.” Sakura sighs. A whiff of chicken-flavored ramen tickles her nose, reminding her that she hasn’t eaten all day.

“Ugh,” says Naruto. “It’s Itachi’s fault we don’t have any missions. I’m gonna egg the shit out of his apartment.”

“You do that,” says Sakura, standing up. “I’m gonna get some cheap, tasty ramen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always! There are parts of this that are unbetaed because our schedules don't match now that I'm working, so assume all mistakes are mine.

“I’m sure you’ll both bring glory to the Hyuuga name in your own, unique ways,” says Lady Daiyu. Her brown eyes pass over both of them, but Hinata knows that she’s referring to Neji. Glory shrouds Neji, after all. “You might be on different teams, but you’re both clever. It won’t stop you from looking out for each other.”

“I don’t need looking after,” says Neji. 

For a fleeting second, Lady Daiyu’s eyes narrow. “Everyone needs looking after. Unless you’ve mastered a technique that lets you function without sleep?”

Neji doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t need to. Even if his mother pretends not to know, it’s obvious that he respects Hinata about as much as he might respect a bug under his sandals. 

“Your father—”

“—My father’s dead.” Again, Neji’s voice doesn’t rise, or even change inflection. 

Still, Hinata’s shoulders hunch of their own volition. She’s not afraid of Neji. . . No, that’s a lie. She is, though he’s never done more than shoot passive-aggressively snide comments her way. They haven’t even sparred in years because Hinata’s father and the rest of the Main house consider it too humiliating. 

“Neji,” says Lady Daiyu. Then she closes her eyes and schools her handsome features into a serene mask. “Hinata, please give us a moment.” 

She could ignore the request. Hinata is technically in line to be the head of the Hyuuga clan, and Lady Daiyu is a civilian who only married into the clan because the elders had ordered Hizashi to bring in new blood. No one could have predicted that she would one day marry Hiashi as well, and everyone certainly hates it. But Hinata only nods, grateful for the opportunity to get away from Neji. 

Besides, Lady Daiyu is kind and fair even though she is not Hinata’s mother. So Hinata bows as she leaves the tea room, then flees to the gardens. Neji likes it there, but he can’t be in two places at once. 

Two of her cousins from the Branch family are tending to the chrysanthemums. Hinata wants to order them away, but the words get stuck in her throat. She would like to pretend that she is too kind and good to order her cousins around like they are no more than servants, but the cold truth is that she’s just no good at telling people what to do. Sometimes, she fears that she’s kind because she doesn’t have the strength to be any other way. 

“There you are!”

Hanabi’s arms are around Hinata’s waist before she registers who has caught her by surprise.

“I was afraid you and Neji had gone off already,” says Hanabi. “They said at the Academy that lots of teams spend the night before the chuunin exams together. Is that true?”

“No, I don’t think so,” says Hinata, berating herself. No Hyuuga should be caught by surprise so easily, especially not by someone so young. “Maybe teams with no clan connections do.”

“Well, you two can’t go without saying goodbye,” says Hanabi, walking around to stand in front of her. She resembles Neji so much that Hinata has trouble seeing her with objective eyes, no matter how different they might be in reality. “Where’s Neji?”

“Speaking with Lady Daiyu. Why don’t you go join them?” 

“Alright,” says Hanabi. “I’ll go get him so we can train a little bit later. It might be the last night you’re both genin.”

It might be the last night Neji is a genin, but Hinata fears that she might not survive the chuunin exams at all. She thinks about begging off, but Hanabi treads away before she can offer up a good excuse. Already, Hanabi moves with more purpose than Hinata can manage on her best days. All Hinata can do is flee her own home; the very home where she is supposed to be the second most commanding voice. Konoha is beautiful all-around anyway. She can relax by the forests, where people are less likely to wander by. Especially her family.

It’s not that Hinata isn’t improving; it’s that she’s improving at such a snail’s pace that no one notices. That’s how it’s been for as long as she can remember. 

Once, she and Neji had not been too far from each other in terms of skill: both with short limbs, clumsy joints, and barely-functioning Byakuugan. Since then, Neji has soared away from her, grown faster, smoother, stronger, and smarter so quickly that she would have looked inadequate even if her hands didn’t have a tendency to shake whenever she gets nervous. 

But her hands do shake and her voice does stutter. Maybe that’s why the soft-spoken, gentle Neji who had helped clean the scrapes on her knees when she had been too embarrassed to go to an adult for help had disappeared. Hinata spends a lot of her waking hours trying to figure out what changed, and when. When did Neji turn from the brother who loves her into the stranger who hates her? What has she done to make him change?

She shivers, then tells herself that it’s the cooling wind that makes her shake. Never mind that she’s wearing her trusty fur coat even though it won’t be weather-appropriate for weeks. Her favorite tree, an unimpressive hickory wedged in the middle of a cluster of massive redwoods, can’t save her from her circular thoughts. Perhaps she should be worrying about the chuunin exams, but. . . There’s a reason she avoids Neji like the mere sight of him is poison. He is poison. She doesn’t understand why she’s the only one who sees it.

No, that’s another lie. She knows why. Neji doesn’t treat anyone else the way he treats her. Hanabi loves him because he teaches her Gentle Fist, and tells her of his missions, provided they’re not classified. His teammates, even that loud boy in the green suit, love him because he watches out for them during missions and helps them train. Why wouldn’t the brass select him for special missions if his Byakuugan is the best in generations? Even Sakura seems to adore him, and obliviously drags him along to study anatomy and medicine when she visits. He’s damned helpful then as well, making Hinata feel like an eel for resenting his involvement in the one area of her life where she’d been _sure_ he wouldn’t turn up.

She bets even Naruto loves him now.

Why not? Neji is smart, helpful, gifted, and blessed with a kind of humor that makes people flock to him. At first, Hinata herself had felt no more than the natural seed of jealousy any human being would feel at being so brutally outclassed, and by someone who is supposed to be their inferior. Sure, she tells herself every day that the sermons about fate decreeing that those born into the Main family are _destined_ to be the pillars of the Hyuuga clan is obviously nonsense meant to justify the cursed seal, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the doctrine she has been fed her entire life. 

Every day, it takes more out of her to stay positive. She misses Naruto’s bluster, the loud taunts in the face of failure that once inspired her to keep going despite failure after failure after failure. Kurenai-sensei is kinder and more patient than Hinata had dared hope for, but she’s too pragmatic to pretend at hope every time that Hinata trips on flat ground, or misses an ambush during missions. Kiba and Shino, especially Kiba, are kind and protective, but it’s obvious that they don’t rely on her as teammate. Sakura and Kabuto try to cover for her at the ER, but Eiji seems to have forgotten all about her. Considering how thrilled he had been at the prospect of a Hyuuga in his team, that stings more than it should. 

Hinata can’t even enjoy the cool breeze passing through her favorite, secluded tree for long. Someone appears behind her. She brings her hands together, heart pounding, and activates her Byakuugan.

“I’ve been here for a good thirty seconds,” says Neji, from the other side of the trunk.

Hinata sighs, then turns off her Byakuugan. Determined to be seen, Neji jumps in front of her.

“What do you want?” Hinata is tired, too tired to be chased around. 

“Hanabi-sama wants to train with us.”

“You don’t have to call her that,” says Hinata. “She worships you.”

“Don’t worry, Hinata-sama.” The title takes on a lilting edge when directed at her. “I probably won’t have to call her that for much longer.”

Hinata looks away, never mind that it’s a sign of weakness. When it comes to this, she is weak, weaker than everyone accuses her of being. She doesn’t want her sister branded with a slave’s curse, but she doesn’t have the strength to renounce her title as the Hyuuga heir. Her freedom, however symbolic it might be, is all she has.

“There is a way out,” says Neji.

She doesn’t look up. A frisson of hope rushes through her, but she stamps it down. All Neji has left for her is cruelty.

“You could die.” 

Hinata’s elbows lock into place for an instant, and it’s enough to doom her. She can’t bring her hands together fast enough to activate Neji’s cursed seal. He’s faster than her, and they’re away from the Hyuuga compound. If he kills her, and he would because he’s not her brother anymore, if he ever was, the clan might thank him for it. 

“Calm down, I wouldn’t kill you like this.” 

“How would you do it?” Hinata is proud that she doesn’t stutter.

“Not like this,” repeats Neji. “I’m just trying to help you. It’s obvious that you’re as trapped as I am, in your own way. In the end, you will die young. Everyone knows it. Why not make your death mean something?”

 _Death never means anything_. Hinata doesn’t have the conviction or strength for such platitudes, no matter how much she might admire it in others. Besides, had Uncle Hizashi’s death meant nothing? Maybe, but if she says that to Neji, he really might kill her.

“You’re fond of Hanabi, yes?” asks Neji. “This is your chance to give her the freedom that you’re wasting. Get yourself killed during the exams before she gets branded with the cursed seal.”

Hinata looks up at him, dozens of pithy comebacks running through the back of her mind. _Why don’t you die at the exams so your death can mean something? I am not going to lie back and let the world push me aside. Deep down, you’re no braver than I am. Why don’t you save some of that vitriol for the people who are actually hurting you?_ Ultimately, all Hinata manages is to stand up so she doesn’t have to strain her neck so much to look Neji in the eye. She reaches into her pocket, taking advantage of the fact that Neji would never consider her a threat.

“Here,” she says, handing him a white, circular container small enough to fit inside his fist. “Take it.”

Instinctively, Neji moves to follow the order. His hand pauses mid-air for an instant, then he takes the container and weighs it in the palm of his hand.

“It’s anesthetic/antibiotic cream,” says Hinata, as Neji rubs the pads of his fingers over the edges. She is no good with her Byakuugan, Gentle Fist, or chakra, but plants soothe her. They don’t get impatient when she takes extra time to discern the poisonous ones from the edible ones, and they do not judge her when she needs several attempts to get a medication or poison just right. Hinata knows that if she can survive long enough, she would become one of the best poison specialists in the village, if only because all other medics and kunoichi find the subject so boring. “Deep wounds are beyond it, but it’ll be useful for superficial cuts.”

“I can heal superficial cuts,” says Neji.

“I know.” Hinata reaches for his hand and makes his fingers close over the round holder. “I don’t want you hurt Neji-niisan, and this is all I can offer. Be safe.”

If kindness is all she has, then she might as well deploy it liberally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here. I posted a little bit about what my work is like [here](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/2016/07/first-week-as-doctor-tiny-example-of.html), if you're interested :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the drawbacks of writing in spurts is that the scenes get longer, but it feels like less stuff happens. I meant for more things to go down, but God only knows when I'll be able to update if I don't update tonight. So here goes.
> 
> Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading like half of this. Schedules still not matching up :(

A week ago, Eiji would have begged for someone to promote Kaisha. Trust the universe to grant his wish, but by eliminating someone way more experienced than either of them. He’s never on the same shift as Kaisha anymore because another senior ER med-jounin, Ena, has been assigned Jian’s duties on the surgical floors. Kaisha has been promoted as her replacement. All that’s left in the ER is Eiji and handful of chuunin with very little skill at using chakra scalpels. Sometimes, no skill at all. He’s getting “twelve-hour” shifts daily, and the rest of the time, he’s on-call. 

Eiji’s not even upset about it anymore. This is the hand life has dealt him. All he can do is try his best not to kill someone with some stupid, exhausted mistake, though it’s inevitable. He figures he’s going to get a bad case of chakra exhaustion eventually and catch some nasty bacterial infection from an immunocompromised patient. There are worse ways for a ninja to die, he supposes. 

“There’s only three villagers out in the waiting room,” says Tsuka, a veteran chuunin with a bad limp who has been reassigned to the ER from the intensive care unit. She has a short crew-cut streaked with silver at her temples, and her nose is as square as a bull’s. Eiji loves her. “Now’s a good time for you to go cry, do some drugs, or masturbate in the on-call room. Whatever you need to do to recharge before shit hits the fan again.”

“Yeah,” says Eiji, wishing he had enough energy to laugh. Whatever genius thought it was a good idea to host the chuunin exams while the hospital implodes needs to be assassinated at the earliest opportunity. 

Visiting ninja tend to avoid the ER, but sometimes they have little choice but to show up. Like when they all start fighting each other because somebody said something about some Kage or other. 

He takes a moment to examine the whiteboard behind the chuunin med station, an idea of Kaisha’s that he has to admit has made all their lives easier. There’s a slot on the board for every bed in the ER, and columns to note the current patient, the time they were registered, who did the initial assessment, what their problem is, and what’s being done for them and/or what they’re waiting for. If the crowds of patients that Kaisha still dumps in his lap during turnover are anything to go by, she’s all polite and reserved about it, but Eiji’s treating the board as a guide for yelling at chuunin who aren’t moving quickly enough. He’s pretty sure they’ll all band together and kill him eventually, but he’s so tired that he’s sort of looking forward to it.

At the moment, there are only seven occupied beds, all healthy patients waiting for lab results that they could have gotten at the clinic. For once, Eiji doesn’t blame them for coming directly to the ER, since clinic hours have been slashed to the bone since Jian’s death. He sighs, tells the room that he’s taking a break and no one better interrupt him unless someone’s dying, and shambles to the on-call room, craving sleep. 

Of course, Itachi is waiting for him there.

“At least you brought me something to eat,” says Eiji, going straight for the bag. He sits at the small desk beside the bunk beds and digs in.

More junk food. Eiji frowns as he chews on a piece of gamey chicken lathered in oil, salt, and fuck-only-knows what else. It’s not like Itachi doesn’t have plenty of time to cook him something that wouldn’t eliminate a significant portion of his stomach lining, or enough money to buy him a gourmet meal. Eiji drowns the white rice in soy sauce, partly to give it some taste, and to enjoy the subtle look of horror that crosses Itachi’s face when he glances at the white grains swimming in a black, fatty sea. It looks worse under the on-call room’s anemic light bulb. Itachi might as well be one of those rich, dignified ladies who tries really hard not to faint the first time their shinobi guard has to gut a bandit in front of them.

“I’m here about the deaths of all those surgeons,” says Itachi, leaning against the narrow strip of wall between the door and the desk. “I’ve been looking into it, and there are too many coincidences and discrepancies for my tastes.”

“Why?”

“Neither Jian nor Nobuo’s families believe they committed suicide, and while that could be denial, I don’t think it is.”

“No, I mean, why are you looking into it?” Eiji slurps his soda as Itachi shoots him an incredulous look.

“Because you asked me to.”

“I did?” Eiji’s definitely gonna kill someone. He doesn’t remember where he is half the time, which means he’s operating in a constant state of near chakra exhaustion. “And you listened to me?”

“You were hysterical.”

“And you listened to me anyway?”

“Am I supposed to wait for some mystical time when you aren’t?”

Eiji chuckles. “The joke’s on you because I’m not fighting with you today. Thanks for the food.” 

“I really have questions about Hiriko and Jun’s deaths,” says Itachi. “And you must as well. You’re the one who came to me swearing that Jian couldn’t have killed himself.”

“What questions are there?” Eiji shrugs, frowning as he bites into a leftover bone fragment in the chicken stirfry. “They got chakra exhaustion and caught an infection.”

“But how common is that among surgeons?”

“Are you kidding me?” Eiji rolls his eyes. “It’s only the leading cause of death among medics who aren’t out in the field. You’re low on chakra, your immune system checks out, and you pick up some monster bug from a junkie, or a cancer patient, or some dying old person. That’s probably what’s gonna take me out, y’know?”

“You have a lot of chakra,” says Itachi. “Enough that you’d have been a candidate to be used as a jinchuriki if only you’d been born a few years later.”

“Don’t freak me out,” says Eiji. “And it doesn’t matter how much chakra I have; I’m only human. At this point, it’s a question of whether it’s gonna be a viral infection, or a bacterial infection, or a superinfection. . . That’s when you get a bacterial infection on top of another, weaker infection.” 

“Are you exaggerating?”

“I never exaggerate.”

Itachi’s face is as blank as a statue. “And there’s no way to prevent it?”

“That’s why I’m eating my weight in food daily,” says Eiji, gesturing at the stir-fry. “Though that comes with its own risks. My pancreas is probably like ‘please stop this or I’m gonna leak digestive enzymes all over the place and kill you to end my suffering’.”

Itachi stares at him.

“Alright, that might be exaggerating a little,” admits Eiji. “But no human’s meant to eat like this in the long-term, not that it matters with the inevitable infection that’s gonna kill me soon enough.”

“The brass must have some plans to deal with this,” says Itachi, still with that air of faint distress about him. “The med corp’s essential personnel, almost on the same level as ANBU.”

Eiji would argue that the med corp is even _more_ important than ANBU if only he had the energy. He shrugs. “If there’s a plan, then no one’s bothered to share it with me.”

“I. . .” Itachi trails off, opens his mouth, closes it. He bites his lower lip, looks away, then stares Eiji in the eyes.

“Are you having some kind of seizure?” Eiji bites into the cheap chicken, frowning. In all the years he’s known Itachi, he’s never seen so many expressions pass through his face. Except maybe during sex, but that doesn’t count.

“Do you want me to get you out of it?” 

“Out of what?” 

“The med corp,” says Itachi, with a subtle edge of impatience that Eiji only recognizes because he spends too much of his time obsessing about Itachi and his mute body language.

“How the hell would you do that?” Eiji sighs. “In case you haven’t noticed, your political standing is somewhere between the toilet bowl and the sewer.”

“Genjutsu,” says Itachi, breezy and smug.

“Shut up.” Eiji squeezes his eyes shut. The on-call room’s sallow light is too much all of a sudden. He doesn’t want to know who the fuck Itachi would have to mindfuck to get a surgeon out of the hospital, considering the circumstances. Hokage-sama himself? Or what it means that Itachi would be willing to risk it. . . why? Because Eiji’s been whining too much lately? 

“If this is killing you, then they’ll have to make do without eventually anyway,” says Itachi.

“And what about every other medic here?” demands Eiji, unable to hold back a disgusted look.

“I don’t care about them.” Itachi says it like Eiji’s a particularly slow gerbil.

“Fuck, you’re as crazy as your mom,” says Eiji. “I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now.”

“How do you know my mother?” asks Itachi.

“What?" How _does_ he? Just how tired is he that he'd babble something like that? "I don’t.”

“Then how do you know I’m as crazy as she is?” Itachi gets steps between the table and Eiji’s chair, then leans down until his bangs brush Eiji’s cheeks. Eiji tries to stand, but Itachi lays a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t exert any force, but he doesn’t have to. “How do you know my mother?”

“I. . .” Eiji's head hurts all of a sudden, right inside, in the center. His pineal gland, he thinks, though that’s dumb because there are no sensory nerves there. Maybe. No, Eiji’s pretty sure about that. His head’s trying to swim through a fog of physiology about masses and intracranial pressure, a matter he barely managed to care about back when he’d had the energy to feel guilty about not studying. 

“Eiji,” says Itachi, startling him even though their gazes had been locked for at least a minute. “How do you know my mother?”

“I don’t,” insists Eiji, heart stomping on his throat. He closes his eyes reflexively when Itachi’s flash red, though he knows better than anyone that it’s pointless.

The door burst open and Eiji exhales as though a brick has fallen on his chest. Itachi doesn’t shift a millimeter. Through a mirthless swamp, Eiji thinks that they must look quite cozy; Itachi practically on his lap, his hand on Eiji’s shoulder, near his neck, and their faces so close together that anyone would think they’re an instant away from kissing. Eiji lets out a strangled chuckle when he meets Itachi’s (mercifully) dark eyes. _Please don’t do anything to her_ , he mouths silently.

“There’s a lady in the waiting room having a heart attack,” says Tsuka. “This booty call is gonna have to wait.”

Eiji laughs again, then gets up slowly, hoping that Tsuka will chalk up his jerky movements to exhaustion or embarrassment. He almost sags back onto the chair when Itachi doesn’t stop him. “I should be free tonight,” he tells Itachi. Or his collarbone. “Come find me then.”

 _And please don’t do anything stupid until then_ , he begs silently as he follows Tsuka out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How long did it take me to write this? At least two months, I think. I'm just too exhausted every day when I get home from the hospital. Thanks to [luvsanime02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02) for beta-reading, as always!

Itachi pauses on a tree branch halfway to the Uchiha compound, uses genjutsu to melt into the surrounding tree branches, and tries to empty his mind of all thoughts. The air caressing his nostrils is tepid, and it warms on the way down to his expanding lungs as his diaphragm contracts. And then a stray thought that it was Mikoto who first taught him to meditate pierces through him, and he coughs as though drowning on air. His knees almost buckle. A hysterical laugh bubbles up from his throat, and Itachi slides his back against the tree trunk and sits on the branch.

Eiji’s been under some sophisticated genjutsu. There’s no way to tell how often, or for how long, but Itachi has systematically mind-raped enough people to recognize the signs. Exhaustion, faulty memory, emotional instability. . . all of which Itachi has been chalking up to inhuman work hours, Eiji’s overall temperament, and lack of sleep. It seems he’s more prone to self-delusion than he ever gave himself credit for.

A crow lands on his shoulder, probably summoned by his distress.

Distress that’s difficult to explain, since it’s not like Eiji actually knows anything. Itachi has been very careful to share the bare minimum with him (at least when he’s not recovering from a particularly vicious bout of insomnia), so what does it matter if his mother has been using him to spy?

There’s no need to minimize the problem either. For better or for worse (worse, apparently), Itachi has trusted Eiji for years. He’s been literally defenseless, in a medically-induced vegetative state, in Eiji’s vicinity on several occasions. A vegetative state that Eiji himself has induced. He falls asleep with his back to Eiji on a regular basis, and Eiji cuddles up to him like a massive tiger. He lets Eiji randomly grab the back of his neck, where he could slice through Itachi’s cervical spine with chakra scalpels in an instant. The only reason he doesn’t eat whatever Eiji puts in front of him without question is that Eiji’s taste in food is horrific.

Eiji could have killed him a thousand times over.

_Caw!_

The crow flaps his wings. One of them slaps Itachi’s cheek.

“I know,” says Itachi.

There’s the matter of his _feelings_ , which he ignores most days because they’re illogical. As illogical as anyone’s feelings are, he supposes. They annoy him all the same. He doesn’t even like Eiji, objectively speaking.

Eiji is loud, obnoxious, lazy, and constantly complaining about everything. Itachi doesn’t remember when, how, or why he ended up entangled in some hideous relationship with him. In fact, every time he asks himself why he insists on putting up with Eiji’s dramatics, he comes up short besides the looks, sex, easy access to restful sleep, private amusement at Eiji’s more outrageous “jokes”, and the certainty that Eiji would never betray him to Danzo. In no particular order.

Mikoto would hate him. All the way from his absurdly big feet to the messy dark bangs he chops off with a kunai whenever they annoy him during surgery

_Caw, caw!_

_“I know.”_

If it was anyone else using genjutsu to manipulate Eiji, Itachi would probably kill them on principle alone. He has a reputation to maintain, if nothing else. But it’s his mother. While he could wander into his parents’ house and kill both of them with ease, he’s not sure he’d be the same person afterwards. Sasuke. . . already despises him, so he has little to lose there.

In the spirit of brutal honesty, Itachi’s also afraid of what he would do in front of his mother. He remembers being oddly disappointed the night he decimated his clan because she had not been able to stop him. Or even slow him down. The tears had done more to hinder him by blurring his vision. It had never occurred to Itachi that he would be so much stronger than the woman who taught him how to move his wrists when throwing shuriken, but a decade of playing the political housewife had dulled Mikoto’s skills.

The crow hops on top of his head and starts pecking his scalp, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough that Itachi can’t ignore it. He’s annoyed with himself for a moment—a theme for the day, it seems—then gets up. Someone’s snooping around for him. Itachi drops the shrouding genjutsu without warning, half-hoping it’s someone looking for a fight.

It’s just one of Ibiki’s lap dogs, the one always standing behind him, or in his shadow, wearing a bulky fur coat regardless of weather. He has a wide scar across his nose that reaches dangerously close to his left lower eyelid. Itachi has never bothered to learn his name.

“Ibiki wants you.”

“I doubt that,” says Itachi.

Ibiki’s jounin glares, a tiny crease of his eyebrows that’s pretty much a mirror of the only indication of annoyance Ibiki allows himself whenever he interacts with Itachi. “For once, can we skip the obligatory posturing? We all know you hate each other, and we’re all nervous about it. Now can we get to work?”

“Maybe when I get my full paycheck back,” says Itachi, to remind the jounin that he’s not the only one fond of posturing.

“Orochimaru’s planning to invade Konoha,” says the jounin flatly.

_When isn’t he?_

Itachi holds back the sarcasm because it’s not like Ibiki would be sending for him if there wasn’t real danger on the way. He settles for vanishing without a word, though he doubts Ibiki’s jounin will take it as an insult, as any clan brat would.

* * *

 

There’s more genin at the building where the chuunin exams are starting than Naruto’s ever seen in one place. When all of them are together, it’s kinda obvious that they’re low-ranked. Chuunin, even in large groups, never make so much noise. Naruto cringes inside, which is probably a sign that Sasuke is rubbing off on him. His palms itch to get to the center of the room, where some kids wearing a headband that Naruto doesn’t recognize are starting some shit with Kiba. A part of it is that Naruto likes being the center of attention, which he’s learned to ignore since Sasuke scurries away from people like a skittish stray.

But much more importantly, Kiba’s his friend. Kind of. At least, he used to play with Naruto when his cousins and parents weren’t looking. They even play-fought sometimes, and for a long time it was the only human contact that Naruto could count on. And besides, Kiba’s a Leaf ninja, so Naruto should help him out on principle alone.

He almost jumps to his feet when the loud kid with the samurai-looking mask thing aims his weird hand with a metal sleeve contraption full of holes at Kiba, but Shino intervenes. Naruto’s too far away to see what happens, but Kiba’s curses sound more annoyed than scared or hurt. Shino’s like Team Eight’s Sasuke, just uglier and less nasty. Not that Shino’s hideous or anything, but Sasuke’s the prettiest person in the village. He’s also the quietest, especially in a crowded room.

Naruto fidgets on the bench they’re sitting on, eyes flitting towards the spot where Sakura and Ino are arguing about. . . who cares, really? Probably Sasuke. Naruto sighs and looks up at the ceiling.

“Will you stop that?” hisses Sasuke. “You’re attracting attention to us.”

“What?” Naruto looks around. “From who? I’m not even doing anything.” If anybody is attracting attention, it’s Kiba, who’s whining at Shino so loudly that Naruto can hear him all the way from across the big-ass conference room.

“You’re doing something now,” snaps Sasuke.

Naruto grunts and slaps his shoulder lightly. There’s no point in arguing with Sasuke when he gets into one of his moods, not that he would ever admit that the prospect of the chuunin exams has him nervous. Naruto’s more surprised with himself, in all honesty. A few months ago, he’d have been full of bluster and anxiety about proving himself, but it doesn’t seem so important anymore. And it should, if only because he still has the tailed beast to worry about, since Itachi never bothered to help with that. Like he promised he would. The bastard.

“You think Itachi will have anything to do with this?” he asks, ignoring what mere mentions of Itachi do to Sasuke. He’s being a dick, so whatever.

“How the hell would I know?”

“I’m just asking,” says Naruto. “I. . . you know, he’s supposed to be the one to step in if I. . . _you know_.”

“So will everyone else, if you don’t shut up about it,” says Sasuke. “Can you go get Sakura?”

“You go get her.” Naruto snorts. How transparent can Sasuke get, asking for Sakura when he wants Naruto to shut up about the Nine-Tails?

“We need to present a united front,” insists Sasuke. “Every team entering the exams is doing recon right now, and keeping tallies of anyone who might be easy pickings during the first few rounds. How do you think it looks that one of us if having some stupid argument with another Leaf ninja?”

Naruto’s back straightens, and he can’t help but scan the room with a new appreciation. Kiba’s spectacle has died down, making Sakura and Ino’s quips about foreheads and pigs the loudest thing in the area, though Naruto can only really make it out because he’s heard the same fight more times than he can count. Most teams are clustered together in units of three, especially those from outside villages. And almost everyone looks older than they do, with beards, mustaches, broad shoulders, and weapons way more specialized than mere kunai and shuriken. Come to think of it, what exactly did that weird ninja with the weird arm try to do to Kiba?

“Yeah, I should go get her,” says Naruto.

But Sakura’s already walking towards them, fists clenched and eyebrows furrowed. Hostile eyes track her as she crosses the conference room, and Naruto wonders if she can tell, or if she’s as hopelessly naive as he is.

“She’ll never freaking change!” says Sakura, as she drops down beside Naruto on the bench and cradles her face. “Augh!”

“Hey,” says Naruto, raising a hand to pat her shoulder, then putting it back down. In her mood, Sakura would just slap him away. “She’s probably gonna be fine.”

“Is she?” demands Sakura, whirling on him. “Because she’s acting like this is another popularity contest.”

“She’s got the Yamanaka clan watching out for her,” says Sasuke.

“They can’t be around all the time,” says Sakura.

Naruto can’t join in on the speculation because one of the more badass-looking chuunin chooses that moment to appear atop one of the tables near the center of the conference hall. The fanfare does little to impress Naruto, but he does make note of the handful of kids who do seem taken aback. They might be faking, or they might actually be as inexperienced as they seem. They’ll be easy targets if that’s the case. Naruto gets a little queasy when he files that tidbit away, but. . . well, it’s true.

The chuunin tells them that the exam will be three stages long, starting with a written exam. That makes Naruto queasy for entirely different reasons. Sakura gulps beside him, though fuck knows she’s got no reason to be nervous. Tests are her thing.

Naruto tries his best to give her a pep talk during the lunch break they get before the tests officially start. Ignoring Sasuke’s complaints, he leads them to a greasy teriyaki joint a little ways off from the testing center so that Sakura doesn’t have to see so many hostiles around them. Maybe the usual buzzing of civilians and bored chuunin will calm her down.

“Have you even looked at a textbook since graduating?” she demands when he tells her that she doesn’t have a reason to freak out. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

“Hey!” Though Naruto has to admit, she really has a point. “I’ve read plenty.”

“Not stupid porn,” says Sakura, fisting her hair. “And maybe I should be worried too. All I’ve studied for the last few months is anatomy.”

“That could be useful,” says Sasuke, “if you can bring yourself to be vicious with it.”

Sakura gulps, which means that her months in the ER haven’t given her a personality transplant.

Running into Team Guy helps, if only because Sakura doesn’t like looking unprofessional in front of Tenten, but then Neji opens his big, fat mouth.

“They won’t be written tests,” Neji says. All he can stomach in such hole of a restaurant is boiled dumplings that don’t taste like anything unless drowned in soy sauce.

“At least one of them will be,” says Sasuke.

“Not really,” insist Neji. “Even if it’s a test with pen a paper, it won’t be about how much you can regurgitate from a textbook.”

“Anyway,” says Naruto, wiping ramen broth from his mouth with the back of his hand, “we’ve all gotten much stronger. Especially you, Sakura. I hardly recognize you sometimes.”

Sakura smiles at him, but Naruto can tell that she doesn’t really believe him. At least she seems to like him lately—genuinely like him, not just tolerate him so she can spend some time around Sasuke.

“Strength is good and all,” says Tenten, “but we’re kinda getting screwed here. If it was just Leaf genin, then it would be way less dangerous.”

“I am afraid I must agree,” says Lee, for once serious in a way that isn’t dumb and flashy. “With so many genin from hostile villages, this will be much more complex than a simple, honorable contest.”

“At least some of them will have some sense,” says Sasuke.

“Maybe. . .” says Naruto. “Or maybe not. Now’s not the time to be getting all optimistic. I’ve got a bad feeling about that Sand guy.”

“What Sand guy?” asks Sakura.

“He’s probably already forgotten me,” says Sasuke.

“The one we told you about before,” says Naruto, shaking his head. Sakura’s had her head in the clouds lately. “And he’s so not forgotten about you. He was looking at you all weird yesterday.”

“One person is hardly worth much consideration,” says Neji, as Sasuke glares at Naruto and Sakura furrows her eyebrows. “It’s all the foreigners together who have me concerned. We’re gonna have to watch out for each other.”

“We’re competing against each other too, remember?” That kind of snittiness sounds weird in Sasuke’s voice.

“Not necessarily,” says Tenten. “Definitely not before the tournament round anyway.”

“Tournament round?” asks Sakura, burrowing into herself. “We’re gonna have to fight for real?”

Lee nods vigorously. “There is always a tournament when multiple villages hold a joint chuunin exam. The daimyo and nobles come, and everyone tries to showcase their skills to attract better, richer clients.”

“It’s not tied with actual promotion,” says Neji. “You can forfeit if you make it that far, and still be promoted. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Regardless,” says Tenten, “I think we should all agree right now. We’ll back each other up and avoid competing with each other directly for as long as possible.”

“Good idea,” says Naruto, though a part of him thinks it sounds a little unfair to gang up like that. But like Sasuke always says, sometimes being a ninja is about who can be the most unfair. Not exactly like that, but that’s the gist of it.

“Should we talk to the other Konoha genin?” asks Sakura.

“No, we can’t make it too obvious that we’re formally working together,” says Neji. “I’m sure they understand, though. Team Eight and Ten’s jounin are in some kind of relationship. They’ve probably made their own pacts.”

“That hot kunoichi and the guy with the cool beard?” asks Naruto. “They’re doing it?”

“I suppose so,” says Neji.

“That’s not any of our business,” says Sasuke. “But fine, we agree. Let’s watch out for each other for as long as we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My blog](http://www.dynamicallyopposed.com/) is here. Not much there these days either.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a week's vacation and was determined to update this! It's been forever since I got to write much so it's like getting back on a bicycle. Work has kinda stabilized though, so hopefully I'll get to write more often from now on!

Sasuke stares at the first question of the written test for a good two minutes before he works out that he’s not expected to know the answer. He should have figured it out sooner, but he supposes he’s been around Sakura for too long.

Although. . . If the enemy is twenty-five yards away and the wind is blowing ten miles per hour, at what angle must you launch your shuriken to strike them at the right carotid artery? With how much force? Show your work.

Probably not even Sakura can answer that. Aren’t there a couple of missing variables there? Like the enemy’s height, and what direction they’re facing? Not that Sasuke ever learned math at the Academy anyway, but during the years he spent in regular school with civilian kids. He takes a moment to scan the room as quickly as he can, forces himself not to wince when he spots the tense line of Naruto’s shoulders, then looks back down at his paper.

At least Naruto’s not the only one who looks tense. Sakura is furiously scribbling, but she must be writing bullshit down. Sasuke’s not as book-smart as her, but he can tell that the questions don’t provide enough information so that answering them is possible.

The majority of candidates, foreign ones included, are frozen in their seats, probably trying to figure out what the real test is. A handful are rather obviously cheating, like that Sand genin in garish make-up. If Sasuke can tell, then the proctors can definitely tell. He hopes, anyway. People must see that Neji has activated his Byakugan, and it’s not like he’s a Main family member. Why are the chuunin tolerating it?

Because that’s the point. The thought comes to him in Mikoto’s voice—or Itachi’s. Maybe.

Sasuke lets his eyes scan the room again. Nothing much has changed. Naruto’s practically curled in on himself, and Sakura’s hand is halfway down her page. Candidates squirm in their seats as they scribble away on their papers. An older one lets out a sharp cry when Sasuke’s eyes land on his test, then he babbles some nonsense about the stress and how very sorry he is. It sounds a little staged. He’s not important either way.

The guy sitting two rows in front of Sasuke is. His pencil passes over his test as quickly as Sakura’s passes over hers, but with none of the anxiety. The plant, though not everyone will realize it. Someone will try to cheat from Sakura, either because they don’t grasp what the true test is, or because they’ll assume that she’s the plant. Sasuke smirks briefly as his Sharingan copies the movements of the plant’s hand, imagining how shocked and disappointed several people will be once they realize that Sakura is scribbling nonsense. If they ever realize it.

He can only hope that his teammates figure it out too, but realistically speaking, they probably won't. Sakura is a rules-stickler and Naruto seems frozen on his seat. Well, whatever. Sasuke had been excited about the tournament, but his teammates are a variable he had little control over. He keeps copying the plant and stops wasting energy feeling sorry for himself about a trivial tournament. It’s what Mikoto would do in his position.

“Ugh, that was the worst!” Sakura cries after the test is over.

Sasuke would tell her to pipe down, but almost every team at the hall has one member moaning about the test.

“Don't worry, Sakura,” says Naruto. “Even if you didn't do too good, which you probably did, Bastard is pretty smart and - ” Naruto continues in a scratchy, loud whisper - “I totally cheated off this older genin two seats ahead of me.”

Sakura snarls and slaps the back of Naruto’s head. “Moron! What if you’d gotten caught?”

“The point was to cheat,” says Sasuke, glancing at Sakura. “How did you even answer those questions, anyway? There were a bunch of missing variables.”

“So you cheated too?” Naruto beams and leans an elbow on Sasuke’s shoulder. “See, Sakura? It’ll be fine.”

“But I just. . .” Sakura pulls her hair. “I didn't figure it out, so I just wrote equations and made up variables. I'm so stupid!”

“Hey, no!” says Naruto, reaching for Sakura’s hand. “Maybe the proctors will take it, and even if they don't, Sasuke and I probably did well enough it won't matter.”

“But what if we failed because of me?”

“It happens,” says Sasuke, shrugging. Mostly, he’s relieved that Naruto worked out what to do, even if he would have liked to participate in the upcoming tournament. Besides. . . “I think the proctors will take what you did, Sakura. You were writing pretty fast so no doubt lots of people around you thought you were the plant they had to cheat from. If we failed, we took a lot of teams with us.”

Sasuke’s right on the money. He smirks at Sakura when they all pass, then berates himself when she blushes at him and looks at the floor. So much for that annoying crush being over and done with.

“Yes!” yells Naruto, pulling them into a group hug. “ _Nailed_ it; I knew we would do it! Let’s go find Tenten and the others.”

Team Guy passed as well, obviously. They’re by a window at the other end of the hall, Tenten satisfied with herself, but standing still and composed next to Neji. Lee’s as unprofessionally excited as Naruto, except for the little detail that Guy himself is nowhere to be found.

“He usually comes to support us in times like these,” says Lee, going back to the window after hugging Naruto and composing a silly speech about perseverance and the power of youth. “This is not like him.”

“With all these foreigners around, the village probably needs all jounin on deck,” says Tenten. “Guy-sensei said he might not see us until after the Chuunin Exams were over, remember?”

“Itachi’s not around either,” says Neji.

“Yeah, like that’s a surprise,” huffs Naruto.

Sasuke’s glad that Itachi can be counted on not to care about them, and might have even said so if it was only him and Naruto. The brief moment of satisfaction passes when one of the proctors announces that the next part of the exams will start in two days time at The Forest of Death.

“How long can they drag this out?” he complains while Sakura gulps at the name of the next site. “I figured we’d want all these people out of the village ASAP.”

“Whatever,” says Naruto. “It’s time to go celebrate.”

Without a jounin around, they can’t afford a restaurant that Naruto and Lee judge adequate to celebrate their accomplishment. Still, they pool their resources together and by dinnertime, find a place that doesn’t make Neji’s refined palate curl in on itself like a finicky noble, at least.

“After we’re chuunin, we’ll get to go to even better places,” says Naruto.

“The pay isn’t that much better,” says Tenten. “And wait until the waiter is out of earshot to whine that the establishment isn’t to your standards, moron. You want spit on our food?”

“We did pretty well,” says Sakura, as Naruto opens his mouth to protest. “The village as a whole, I mean. All rookie teams got through the first time, and Kabuto’s team too.”

“Who?” asks Naruto.

“One of the genin medics,” says Sakura. “He says he’s failed the exams a whole bunch of times. I hope he passes this time.”

“That’s strange,” says Neji, fingers rubbing the edge of his water glass. “You’d think someone so weak wouldn’t be accepted into the med corp.”

“Oh, Kabuto isn’t weak,” says Sakura. “He’s probably be the best of the rookie medics. Eiji’s taking him along on surgeries all the time.”

“That may be so,” says Neji, “but it doesn’t change that the Chuunin Exams aren’t that difficult. Almost everyone passes on their second try. This Kabuto should probably give up if he’s failed more than three times.”

Sasuke practically hears the atmosphere around their table grow colder.

“Why are you always like this?” demands Lee, impressive eyebrows furrowed. “If someone does not get something right away, then they should just quit. You are like a broken record.”

“Ugh, not this again,” says Tenten.

“The broken records are the ones who keep slamming headfirst into their limitations,” says Neji, sipping his water.

“That’s rich coming from you,” says Sasuke. He doesn’t speak often during their group outings, so his voice is enough to stop Lee’s upcoming rant in its tracks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Neji’s frame is relaxed and his gaze remains fixed on Lee, but Sasuke knows that Byakugan is on him.

“You know exactly what it means,” says Sasuke. “Unless your eyes aren't as sharp as you pretend.”

“Okay, hold up,” says Naruto, as Neji turns to glare at Sasuke and Sakura’s hands curl into fists on the table. “Let’s not start shit right before the real test. We're allies, remember? Save it for after.”

Neji snorts as Lee babbles an agreement with Naruto. For once, Sasuke agrees too. Neji might be an asshole, but he’s a very useful one who’s already pried one of Itachi’s secrets from Itachi’ss claws. The bastard’s Shadow Clones detonate, and Sasuke didn't have to lose an arm to figure it out because one of them had exploded all over Neji’s genius taijutsu. Undoubtedly, Neji would be just as helpful during the Chuunin Exams.

“Fine, I didn't mean anything by it.” It’s the closest to an apology Sasuke can manage, but Neji has the good sense to stay quiet and look away.

Sakura sighs, not bothering to or perhaps not able to hide her relief. Naruto smiles and drags Lee into a speculative conversation about what the upcoming test will be like. Tenten joins them and their meal ends without further incidences.

* * *

“This kid’s mission reports are offensive. How can prose so detailed be this bland? _The enemy fled after I deployed ten kunai in a personal variation of Shurikenjutsu Form 3A-7B, so we headed back to the forest and had a campsite thirty-five miles away by 18:00 hours._ For fuck’s sake, he even writes down how many blows it took to kill each target. Doesn't he know the importance of using details sparingly?”

“Mission reports aren't short stories, Jiraiya,” says Sarutobi-sensei.

Jiraiya grunts, looks up and walks over to the massive window in Sarutobi-sensei’s main office. There’s no moon to light Konoha, but the lights from civilian businesses bathe the streets in a sickly glow. Last time Jiraiya had been in the village proper, people had been too afraid to become beacons in the middle of the night. Jiraiya would not permit it to get that bad again. Not while he still breathes. Certainly not because Orochimaru loves his grudges too much, or because old age has turned him into a jealous, fickle bastard.

“This boy is just the type Orochimaru would sink his claws into,” he tells Sarutobi-sensei, exaggerated annoyance gone from his voice. “Gifted, possessing a kekkei-genkai, desperate; and, by all reports, quite pretty.”

“You don't know him like I do,” says Sarutobi-sensei, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Itachi’s too independent and proactive to be drawn into Orochimaru’s web. Not to mention he’s got an age-appropriate lover. Orochimaru doesn’t share his possessions.”

Someone knocks on the door, then the subject of their speculations walks in after Sarutobi-sensei’s approval. Dark eyes pass over Jiraiya, dancing on the edge between neutral and dismissive, before Itachi bows to his Hokage. “I thought Ibiki summoned me,” he says, voice deeper than Jiraiya expected from such a young man.

“The Chuunin Exams have been unkind to Ibiki’s schedule,” says Sarutobi-sensei. “Jiraiya and I can relay the relevant information for your next mission.”

“Mission?” asks the boy. He doesn't even glance Jiraiya’s way. “I assume it has to do with Orochimaru.”

Even though Jiraiya doesn't consider himself a vain man, a teen’s dismissal burns for a brief second.

Sarutobi-sensei gestures at the board behind Itachi, hanging on the wall about a foot from the door. Itachi turns around, drinks in the tagged world map and the different-colored threads connecting different sites all over the world. Jiraiya wishes he could see the boy’s face, though he’s supposedly quite expressionless.

“My ANBU missions,” says Itachi.

Jiraiya smiles, waiting to see if Itachi could find the pattern he had seen after scouring all the intel Ibiki had gathered on Orochimaru and combining it with the rumors he had fettered from Orochimaru's middling minions.

“All the ones where an unidentified enemy fled,” says Itachi, turning around. He stares, wide eyes flitting between them, then through the spots where Sarutobi-sense’s ever-present ANBU guard hides, and Jiraiya wonders why anyone complains that this boy’s face is dead. “Lots of people flee from me.”

Compared to Orochimaru, who shows only smug satisfaction and indignation, Itachi’s an open book. At least when he can’t quite figure out what’s happening, but doesn’t want to ask anything for fear of seeming slightly less than brilliant.

“How much do you know of Orochimaru?” asks Jiraiya, half-expecting that boy will unravel the mystery with that question alone.

“About as much as any Leaf shinobi, I bet,” says Itachi.

Jiraiya walks forward, hoping that Itachi would get a little bigger up-close. These tenagers get smaller every year, which is probably a sign of how much older Jiraiya becomes with every passing spring. He touches a red thread, one connecting a drug den in Amegakure that Itachi had infiltrated in search of a Leaf rogue ninja to a mansion in The Land of Fire where Itachi had assassinated a cumbersome feudal lord. The two missions could not have less in common, except that Itachi had reported a strange encounter during both of them.

“A Grass-nin who dodged three of my shuriken here,” says Itachi, touching the tag at Amegakure, “and a man who tried to pickpocket me after I finished here,” he finishes, with a light tap at the tag marking the mansion. “They were different people.”

Just how does Itachi's Sharingan work? How impressive is his memory? Jiraiya almost shudders, imagining all the details of his life that he’s grateful have faded from his mind.

“Itachi,” calls Sarutobi-sensei. “Did Orochimaru ever approach you before defecting?”

“No,” says Itachi. “I’ve never spoken to the man.” He looks back at the map. “At least, not that I know of.”

“My intel says he’s been stalking you for years,” says Jiraiya.

“I would know if someone’s stalking me.” There’s that arrogance again, marring Itachi’s delicate features as he glances at the map. “Besides, I’m too old for Orochimaru.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Jiraiya. The kid doesn’t react at the challenge, still absorbed with the map. “First of all, you aren’t; and second, I don’t mean he wants to fuck you. He wants your eyes.”

“He wouldn’t be the first one,” says Itachi, gaze returning to Sarutobi-sensei. “Hokage-sama, am I going after Orochimaru?”

“I can’t risk you becoming his next vessel,” says Sarutobi-sensei.

“I’d kill myself first,” says Itachi.

“And hand him your corpse?” Jiraiya snorts.

“So what?” asks Itachi, without looking at Jiraiya. “We wait here until he deigns to attack us directly? Keep chasing his drug trails and human experiments? I can’t be the only one sick of that.”

“I agree,” says Sarutobi-sensei. “Which is why you’re going with Jiraiya as bait. Together, you’ll assassinate Orochimaru.”


End file.
